Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This midslope block at Seven Springs is slowly succumbing to phylloxera but still producing small quantities of exceptionally balanced fruit. It’s typically aged in 100 percent new Ermitage barrels, with the kind of TLC that sets it up for long aging. This vintage is dark and a bit muted, with elements of tanbark, cinnamon and a compelling hoisin spice, a mélange that seems to point to oak and whole-cluster spice. The texture is sleek and suave, the flavors complex and savory, with notes of clove, anise and orange oil, all held at a distance. This deserves at least a year of cellar time before serving with duck.
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Wine Spectator
Delicate and savory, with smoky cherry and green tea aromas and precise raspberry, underbrush and spice flavors. Drink now through 2022.
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.