Winemaker Notes
All wines were fermented with native yeast and no sulfur until after malolactic fermentation. Blended together, these two lots express vivid, fresh red fruit, silky textures, and unique layers of warm baking spices.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a very fresh, attractive nose with roses and violets, as well as boysenberries, red cherries and a savory, stony edge. Some sappy nuances, too. The palate is very succulent and has strikingly fresh red berries and cherries, underscored with vibrant acidity and a very uplifting, dynamic finish. A richer vintage, made in a fresher style, works very well here. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2018 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard has gorgeous aromas of crushed red and blue berries with streaks of tangerine peel, loads of floral uplift and an undercurrent of earth and amaro. Medium-bodied, the palate is silky and super fresh, exploding with loads of appealing, finely accented berry fruits, and it finishes uplifted and perfumed.
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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.