Winemaker Notes
Just a spectacular vintage from this unparalleled, ungrafted old-vine site in the NW corner of the Yamhill-Carlton district. It opens with anise, pencil led and a gamey quality as the dark-colored wine moves slowly around the glass. After further aeration there's a roasted plum and cassis aroma, then a forest floor freshness emerges with a candied fennel and balsamic element. It's quite spectacular, there's a lingering earth quality but as the wine warms there's the classic Bishop Creek crushed granite and blackberry crumble nuances interwoven with new French oak and dusty river stones. Its distinctive, a wine of nobility with a long finish comprised of minerals and delicious black fruits interlaced a medium-weight, dusty tannin structure
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A medium red hue, the 2021 Pinot Noir Bishop Creek grabs your attention right away with layered aromas of gravelly earth and kirsch, as well as potent notes of crushed pine needles and fresh lavender. Long on the palate, it’s packed with structure and is medium to full-bodied, with mouthwatering mineral accents of saline, a balanced seam of acidity, and ripe tannins. It expands across the palate and retains good focus. Drink 2025-2040.
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James Suckling
A fragrant, earthy, rose petal aroma is alluring and fresh before explosive raspberry and red cherry flavors spread across the palate, buoyed by tangy acidity and moderate tannins. From an estate-owned vineyard and old vines planted on their own roots.
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Decanter
A floral-driven aromatic leaps forward from these 30-year-old, own-rooted vines in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. Notes of violets and savoury garrigue give way to red berries and earth. The palate is mouth-watering, with lush fruit and fresh acidity coming together in juicy berry flavours and ample structure that hint at this wine just getting warmed up.
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Wine Enthusiast
Balanced and elegant, this wine dazzles with aromas of blackcap raspberries and star anise complemented by savory notes of seared pork and loamy soil. Firm tannins and bright acidity back flavors like blackberries, coriander, wet slate, cedar and thyme
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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.