Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Avni Pinot Noir has beautiful expressions of rose petal, wet stone, black plum, red cherry along with savory elements. It has slightly more structure than the Avni Pinot Noir from earlier vintages but is also layered with seductive fruit and a supple texture. It is vibrant and fresh.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A lithe wine, with laser focus, offering layers of snappy cherry, river stone and savory dark spice flavors that build tension toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2027.
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Wine Enthusiast
Bursting open with blueberry and blackberry fruit, this well-balanced Avni integrates its savory notes perfectly. It’s aromatic and brings a light suggestion of mineral. Barrel aging included 20% new oak, and it responds well to a bit of extra breathing time. Editors’ Choice
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Wine & Spirits
Drawn from mostly Eola–Amity Hills vineyards, including Larry Stone’s estate, this is youthful and brisk, with a light red-cherry scent lined by oak. The plum flavors have an earthiness that brings the wine to a darker hue, emphasized by weighty and mineral tannins and a barrel element that will need time to tuck into the wine
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.