Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Sleek and focused, restrained in style but presenting ripe blueberry, plum and floral flavors that glide into a long, lithe finish. Sleek and deep, lingering with harmony. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Pinot Noir Abbot Claim Vineyard, from vines planted just outside the town of Yamhill in 2001, has an attractive red cherry and strawberry scented bouquet, a little cassis tucked in behind with a light seaweed influence. The palate is medium-bodied with quite firm tannin, saline in the mouth, fresh and vigourous with pleasing marine influence towards the slightly rustic but still attractive finish. Give it 12-18 months in bottle and you will have a fine Pinot Noir.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.