Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Polished and well-structured, with expressive rose petal and sassafras aromas and dynamic blackberry, licorice and spice flavors that billow toward plush tannins.
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Wine & Spirits
La Source is usually drawn from the top of Seven Springs, where the soils are shallow and the vines most exposed to afternoon breezes. This wine may reflect those circumstances in its concentration, with heady strawberry scents and flavors of unusual density and grip. It’s buoyed by firm, mouthwatering acids and marked on the finish by a hint of clove-y cluster-spice. This has the stuffing to cellar.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby in color, the 2015 Pinot Noir la Source Seven Springs Vineyard has a lovely savory nose with aromas of charcuterie, toasted cardamom, forest floor, potpourri, perfume and bramble berry. Medium-bodied, it has a great silky texture opening to tart wild blackberries, cracked pink peppercorn and savory/meaty touches, with a firm frame of grainy tannins and plenty of freshness, finishing long with mineral accents.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.