Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Pinot Noir Estate is spicy and savory with cinnamon, forest floor, and ripe cherry, and on the palate it is structured, with beetroot, cedar, and dried raspberry, and fresh acidity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2016 Pinot Noir Estate offers lush fruits—warm cranberries, red currants and blackberries—with nuances of orange peel, earth and potpourri. Medium-bodied, it offers great intensity and amaro-laced fruits, with a finely granulated frame and seamless freshness, finishing long and bright.
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Wine Spectator
Deep and brooding, yet retains a sense of focus and polish, offering dark cherry, black tea and spice box flavors that take on momentum toward refined tannins.
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James Suckling
Aromas of baked cherry, crushed plum and elderflower. Medium-bodied with articulate acidity that brightens the ripe red and black fruit. Well-structured, silky tannins. Pleasant spiciness begins to peek through as the palate evolves. White pepper.
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.