Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Mouth-watering aromas of waxy black cherries emanate from the glass of the 2004 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard. Like many Oregon 2004s, this offering is already presenting itself as a mature wine. Exceptionally sweet and generous, this fruit-forward effort coats the taster’s palate with highly expressive red cherries. that linger in its long and spicy finish. Consumers are well-advised to drink this sumptuous wine soon as its future is questionable.
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Wine Spectator
Lean and lithe, a bundle of red cherry, raspberry and peppery spice aromas and flavors on a zingy bed of acidity and freshness, persisting nicely on the polished finish.
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.