Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A vivid and bright wine with dried-strawberry and floral aromas and flavors. Medium to full body, medium, velvety tannins and a delicate chocolate, hazelnut and ripe-fruit finish. Impressive for the vintage. Drink or hold.
-
Wine Enthusiast
The winery's largest vineyard, Mount Richmond encompasses 105 acres, and yet just 752 cases of the vineyard-designated version were produced in this vintage. The demanding selection process worked wonders. This is a smoky and seductive wine with aromas of incense and Asian spice. Bright, ripe cherry fruit is highlighted with a dash of dark chocolate. Subtle and elegant, this is an all-star effort from a challenging vintage.
-
Wine Spectator
Fresh and inviting, showing more density than many 2013s, with juicy blackberry and spice flavors set against fine-grained tannins. Offers presence and length. Best from 2017 through 2020. 752 cases made.
One of the founding wineries of the Willamette Valley, family-owned and operated Elk Cove Vineyards was the first vineyard in what is now the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. Second-generation Owner/Winemaker and fifth-generation Oregon farmer Adam Campbell sources fruit from Elk Cove's six 100% estate-grown, sustainably farmed vineyard sites located across the northern Willamette Valley, specializing in Pinot Noir and cool-climate white wines. Elk Cove is named for the local herd of Roosevelt elk and the protective bowl shape of the property. Its tasting room is tucked into the foothills of the Coast Range, with spectacular views of the surrounding vineyards and mountains.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.