Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has a wealth of red-cherry and mocha-scented spice aromas in a very impacted and earthy style that has complex yet pure fruit appeal. The palate has a sense of depth and finesse that really highlights the red cherries. Very plush and precise. This is great pinot noir.
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Wine Enthusiast
Bishop Creek is the estate vineyard, planted in the late 1980s with own-rooted vines. The wine is dark and muscular, with brambly black-cherry fruit. Streaks of earth and iron add further density, and there's a slight hint of leather in the nose.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From own-rooted vines planted in the 1980s, the 2016 Pinot Noir Bishop Creek Vineyard is pale to medium ruby with a wonderful deep, broody nose of warm black cherries, blueberry and boysenberry preserves with touches of blue flowers, peppercorn and dried leaves. Light to medium-bodied, it fills the mouth with ripe black and blue fruits flavors and faint meaty/earthy touches, with a firm frame of grainy tannins and juicy acidity, finishing long and minerally.
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.