Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The clarity and depth of fruit from these 45-year-old vines is beautifully showcased here. It's an elegant, focused and captivating mix of rose water, raspberry and cherry, with highlights of orange peel and bergamot tea. Everything is in perfect harmony and really captures the delicate power of the grape.
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Wine Spectator
Graceful and distinctive, with cherry and cranberry flavors, accented by savory underbrush and black tea notes that build richness and depth on the long finish. Drink now through 2028.
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James Suckling
Assertive, brambly and forest aromas with berries, wild herbs and cedary-oak influence. The palate offers gently sinewy tannins, carrying sweet red cherries.
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Wine & Spirits
Initial scents of smoke and sawdust frame a lean, dark fruitiness. With air there’s a sneaky advance of flavor, grounded by cocoa and carob flavors, delivered with a scudding smoothness like the feel of linen—the texture for duck.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.