Winemaker Notes
Lingua Franca Estate Pinot Noir begins with a heady scent of roses, violets and raspberries and blackberries. On the palate, the wine is round and rich, with a silky texture and lingering flavors. The elegance of the wine is aided both by the cooler weather at harvest and by using less whole cluster than usual for this cuvée. 2019 is also the first vintage of Estate Pinot Noir that has no Pommard clone addition.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Estate has an alluring perfume of cranberry sauce, forest floor, angostura bitters and loads of floral nuance. The light-bodied palate is focused and pure with a particularly seamless, silky mouthfeel, and delicate yet layered perfume defines the long finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This is a blend from multiple parcels at Larry Stone’s estate vineyard. Like Lingua Franca’s other 2019s, it took its time evolving, this one showing earth, oak and turned soil when first poured, revealing many nuances over five days tasted, its earthy black cherry flavors set in a stalwart tannic structure that opened in subtle increments each day. Built to cellar.
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Wine Spectator
Dynamic yet nuanced, a red that marries elegance with a steely density, showing expressive violet, raspberry, stony mineral and spice box accents that pick up speed and tension toward well-framed tannins. Drink now
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James Suckling
Hibiscus with other floral and orange-peel aromas follow through to a medium body with firm tannins and a fresh, bright finish. A little tight at the end, but I like the tension.
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.