Winemaker Notes
Named after the man who stole the clippings in the middle of night, nothing says Hyland Pinot Noir quite like the Coury Clone. This Coury wine attacks with aromas of cherries and wild strawberries. The mouth is graceful and consistent year over year with tea and plum notes and a very noteworthy spice at the end which beautifully lingers on the palate seconds after each sip.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A fresher style of pinot noir for the vintage with raspberries, cranberries and orange rind as well as some nice savoriness. The palate is medium-bodied but with lots of very tight and polished tannins, vivacious acidity and a minerally finish. Drink now or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Pinot Noir Coury is pale to medium ruby in color with a nose of dried rose petals and potpourri with nuances of dried red cherries, cranberries and autumn leaves. Light to medium-bodied, it has a good concentration of red fruits in the mouth with lots of earthy accents, grainy tannins and juicy acidity, finishing long and minerally.
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.”
Stretching southwest from the city of McMinnville, the AVA with the same name covers about 40,000 acres across 20 miles until it meets the Van Duzer Corridor. This corridor is the only break in the Coast Range whose gap allows the cool Pacific Ocean air to flow eastward into the Willamette Valley.
The Pacific's moderating winds hit McMinnville’s south and southeast facing slopes where cool-climate varieties—namely Pinot noir and Pinot blanc thrive on ridges at between 200 to 1,000 feet in elevation.
Soils here are primarily uplifted marine sedimentary loam and silt, with alluvial formations; McMinnville receives less rainfall than its neighbors to the east because it is situated in the rain shadow of the Coast Range.