Winemaker Notes
One of five cuvées that are produced identically, with the same fermentation regimes of wild yeast and small fermentation vessels, followed by aging in blends of cooperage with 19% new oak in each. The result is a fascinating journey up the Dundee Hills, from their lowest elevation Sisters vineyard at 220’ up to their highest elevation Daphne vineyard at 860’. Each wine reflects facets of soil, site, exposure, and vine age that together capture a precise portrait of how variations in place can influence Pinot Noir.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Outcrop is a beautiful wine with arresting aromatics: a core of wild berries is accented by tea leaves, lavender, Campari and lemon peel. The light-bodied palate is grainy and fresh with surprising concentration for its approachable frame and a very long, detailed finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Boysenberries and violets create a beautifully aromatic perfume, aided by touches of saline, earthy oregano and leather. The wine’s bright acidity matches its firm tannins in support of flavors of black cherry, chicory coffee and blood orange. This wine is almost too pretty to drink.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.