Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is lovely, tempting the nose with violet-tinged currant and blackberry fruit, washing easily over the tongue with a graceful balance of fruit and spice, lingering effectively as the flavors hover. Drink now through 2014.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2006 Pinot Noir Willakia Vineyard offers a deeper color, greater aromatic complexity, but essentially a similar personality. This smooth, seamless wine can be enjoyed over the next 4-6 years.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.