Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Displaying a jeweled red hue, the 2022 Pinot Noir Temperance Hill Vineyard is very layered and beautiful, offering striking clarity in its notes of wild herbs, ripe raspberries, sunny but bright fruit, and fresh rosemary. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied and has wonderful balance and a harmonious feel. Highly appealing now, with a light, juicy feel throughout the palate, it’s long and elegant and is only going to improve in another few years.
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Wine Spectator
A Pinot with style and intensity, with a keen structure framed by detailed flavors of blueberry and raspberry that take on clove, forest floor and savory spice accents. Finishes with broad-shouldered tannins. Drink now through 2035.
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James Suckling
This is complex and structured, with savory undertones to the red and darker berries, layered with dried flowers and subtle spices. Medium-bodied and crunchy, with a core of red fruit and racy acidity carrying it through to a flavorful, textural finish. Bright and focused. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
Woodsy cherry-berry fruits come together with hints of lavender and orange sorbet as the 2022 Pinot Noir Temperance Hill Vineyard blossoms in the glass. This sweeps across the palate, lifted and energetic, with tactile mineral tones up front accelerated by brisk acidity. It leaves a tart cranberry crunchiness through the finish, tapering off with a coating of grippy tannin offset by sour citrus. This zesty rendition of Temperance Hill is already showing beautifully yet has the balance for a lovely evolution over the medium term.
Rating: 93+
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.