Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Plump and polished, showing a lively structure, with floral raspberry and sassafras flavors that pick up speed toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple, the 2017 Two Messengers Pinot Noir has an inviting fragrance of earth, pipe tobacco, Angostura bitters, underbrush, black cherries and baked blackberries with accents of clove and aniseed. The palate is medium-bodied and silky with earthy, spicy fruits, grainy and fresh with a long finish.
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Wine & Spirits
A lush scent of warm, crushed strawberries is framed by a bit of tobacco savor. The flavors are sleek, with plenty of fruit and freshness, the finish slightly smoky and firmly tannic; for duck confit.
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.