Winemaker Notes
Shiny and ruby red with violet hues, deep in color yet crystalline. The first nose reveals approachable boasting aromas of sour cherry, earthy minerals on a finely tightened core. Pure and elegant, the nose opens up towards blueberry and black raspberries as you swirl with hints of earl grey tea and baking spices. Rich and lush with a smooth entry on the palate that carries a lovely velvety texture of refined tannins wrapping finely around the sour cherry & iron fist minerality. Broader, yet with a long finish and a beautiful texture that provides a lasting impression. This highly complex wine with its silky open mouthfeel is a crowd pleaser.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
A seamless wine, polished and structured, with elegantly expressive raspberry, savory forest floor and spice notes that take on richness toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2029. 306 cases made.
-
Wine Enthusiast
There’s a dense blueberry core that concentrates the flavors in this wine, which, along with the Temperance Hill, is the ripest of all Lavinea’s 2017s. It breathes open into a lovely burst of sweet cinnamon and punchy allspice, adding texture and detail through a long 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.