Expression 44° Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir 2008 Front Label
Expression 44° Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir 2008 Front Label

Winemaker Notes

The Eola-Amity Hills AVA, which is located within the Willamette Valley, is home to many of Oregon's finest Pinot Noir vineyards. During the growing season, ocean breezes push through the Van Duzer corridor in the Coastal Range maintaining a consistently cool climate that is the hallmark of all great Pinot Noir winegrowing regions. This climate, combined with the shallow, well-drained volcanic soils of the Willakenzie and Nekia soil series that dominate this area, are the primary reasons this viticultural area is emerging as one of the top winegrowing regions in North America.

Winemaker Notes Moderate crop levels combined with a warm growing season typified the 2008 vintage in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA of the Willamette Valley, and resulted in superb fruit quality at harvest. Winemaking began with cluster sorting and destemming, after which secondarily sorted whole berries underwent a prolonged cold soak, followed by gentle fermentation in small batches. The resulting wine lots demonstrated diverse personalities based on vineyard sites and clonal diversity; these qualities revealed themselves further during 11 months of barrel aging in French oak barrels. Reductive winemaking techniques helped further define and sculpt these wines. The final blend is representative of the spirit of the AVA, with complex aromas and flavors, minerality and plush-textured mouth feel.

Professional Ratings

  • 92
    Refined, focused and elegant, weaving a strong mineral note through a chorus of blackberry, raspberry, pepper and floral flavors, mingling effortlessly on the extended finish. Drink now through 2018. 848 cases made.
Expression

Expression

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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.”

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Eola-Amity Hills

Willamette Valley, Oregon

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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.

MNS53201081_2008 Item# 109035