Winemaker Notes
Located in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, McCrone vineyard is on ancient marine sedimentary parent material at 400 ft elevation on a South to Southwest inclination. The wine is floral and spice focused. Red plum and Bing cherry are steeped in a sun tea with hints of hibiscus. A brooding, darkened cherry evolves on the palate into a voluptuous cola finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The McCrone is impressively dense, with raspberry and cherry fruit buoyed by juicy acids. It’s a palate-soaker, full bodied and fruit powered, with pleasantly peppery spice running through a long finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Could the McCrone Vineyard be that elusive Pinot Noir that I have spent a lifetime searching for and never found? The 2017 vintage is impressive. TASTING NOTES: This is a complete wine. Its aromas and flavors of black fruits and oak shading should make it perfect pairing partner with a rosemary-accented veal roast. (Tasted: February 12, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.