Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The top wine from Ken Wright in 2008, this beautifully elegant wine clocks in at just 13.3% alcohol, yet delivers a mouthful of delicious flavors. A lovely mix of cranberry, pomegranate and wild raspberry is annotated with dusty herb. Excellent midpalate concentration and length.
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Wine Spectator
Big flavors on a polished frame make this intensely focused wine dance nicely, offering currant, blackberry and plum fruit, with hints of pepper and spice as the finish lingers effortlessly.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Pinot Noir Canary Hill Vineyard (owned by Ken Wright) is a bit darker in color. It reveals an enticing perfume of balsam wood, smoke, Asian spices, violets, black cherry, and black raspberry. This is followed by a medium-bodied, sweetly-fruited, intense wine with plenty of structure, vibrant acidity, and several years of aging potential. This mouth-filling Pinot will offer a drinking window extending from 2013 to 2023.
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.