Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Taut and deftly wrought, with pretty mulberry and pomegranate flavors on a transparent frame, veiling the extended finish in delicately peppery tannins. Has presence and persistence. Best from 2018 through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard, from vines planted in 1989 (since affected by phylloxera), offers one of the best aromatics from Ken Wright. I appreciate the delineation here, precise and focused with lifted red fruit mixed with stony, woodland aromas. The palate is fresh and vibrant with crisp acidity, bright red fruit intermingle with fine mineralité, with a vivacious finish that is very satisfying. This should age with style.
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.