Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2023 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard is lifted and aromatic with notes of pine needles, wild raspberries, mint, and crushed stones. Medium-bodied and seamless, it balances red and black fruit with fine tannins and a graceful texture. Black raspberries, grenadine, and fresh flowers carry through the long finish.
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Wine Spectator
Precise and steely in structure, with expressive flavors of cherry and tart blueberry highlighted by forest floor, black tea and mineral tones as this gathers tension toward fine-grained tannins.
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.