Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Expressive and precise, with handsome raspberry and pomegranate flavors that are laced with green tea and forest floor tones as this builds toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2032.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Zena Crown Vineyard wafts with a spicy mix of peppery florals, cedar shavings and dried black cherries. Both savory and sweet, it shows chalky mineral tones and nuances of tart citrus and sour cherries. The finish is medium in length and concentration with edgy tannins that resonate.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from this esteemed site in the Eola-Amity Hills, the 2022 Pinot Noir Zena Crown is a medium red color and offers elegant, layered spice notes of clove, dried cherries, cinnamon, and potpourri. It’s snappy and lifted on the palate, with a bit of greenness and a chalky, stemmy texture that brings a bit of astringency to the finish.
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.