Winemaker Notes
The 2017 La Source Pinot Noir is most representative of the vintage with brilliant color in the glass and aromatic purity on the nose. The elevated acidity in the vintage and the structure attained through partial whole-cluster fermentation position this wine to enjoy a long arc in the cellar.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Silky and delicately complex, featuring floral raspberry and blueberry aromas, layered with sassafras and stony mineral flavors that dance on a polished finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir La Source has a medium ruby-purple color and aromas of cranberry sauce, crushed blackberries and raspberries with notes of Earl Grey tea leaves, saline, dusty perfume, granite and floral perfume. The medium-bodied palate bursts with perfectly ripe fruits, gently framed and super juicy, finishing long and perfumed.
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Wine & Spirits
An intense whole-cluster experience, this wine’s initial scents are of Scotch and tobacco, turf and smoke. It tastes of Santa Rosa plums and cherry compote, rich at first before turning tart and bracing, the finish bursting with red-berry savor. Give it time in the cellar for the savory side and the fruit to knit.
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.