Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A lovely, delicate Pinot, with aromas of fresh violet opening to elegantly multilayered raspberry, guava and forest floor accents, which glide on the graceful finish.
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James Suckling
What a fragrant nose of green strawberries, fresh raspberries, licorice, thyme and pink peppercorns. Lovely soft and supple texture, with soft tannins and vibrant acidity. Medium-bodied, silky and caressing. Peppery fragrance, too. Drink now.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir Seven Springs Vineyard is scented of wild berries, tar, forest floor and mushrooms, gaining in intensity and detail as it opens in the glass. The medium-bodied palate is bursting with woodsy, bitters-laced flavors. It’s structured by chalky tannins and fresh acidity and has a long, pleasurably herbal finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dusty, brambly red fruit, like the wild berries you pick by the side of a country road, mix with aromas of cinnamon spice, white pepper and sweet hyacinths. Crisp, lemony acidity escorts flavors like Bing cherries and black coffee. Silky tannins are a mere bonus
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.