Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A delectable red-fruited Pinot Noir from the long, steep Meyer Vineyard at high elevation in the Dundee Hills AVA. Fresh cranberry relish and dusty mint aromatics denote the early harvest for this fruit from south-facing vines. The bright palate offers tart red cranberries, blood orange pulp and savoury notes of sage. The wine finished with a lifted stony minerality.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A youthful ruby red hue, the 2021 Pinot Noir Meyer Vineyard is ripe and polished with notes of sweet cedar spices, preserved strawberries, herbes de Provence, and anise. Moving to the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, with a saturating feel, lively, ripe acidity, juicy, fine tannins, and clean lift on the finish, with good freshness and purity throughout. This highly charming and attractive wine will be best enjoyed over the coming 5-7 years.
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Wine Spectator
Fragrant and expressive, with vibrant cherry and strawberry flavors accented by notes of fresh violet, orange blossoms and toasty spices that zip along the crisp 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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.