Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense, focused red with plum and chocolate character. Hints of iron and bark. It’s full-bodied with a nice, round texture of integrated tannins and a long, flavorful finish. Drink or hold.
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Decanter
From a site not far from Domaine Drouhin in the Dundee Hills, the Nysa bottling opens in the glass to reveal aromas of liquorice, red and black fruit, and anise. Voluminous and textural on the palate, but underpinned by some firm, savoury tannins on the back end. In its expression of site this Pinot Noir is actually rather reminiscent of Morgon. Drinking Window 2017 - 2027
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Wine Spectator
Sleek and expressive, with rose petal and cherry aromas and delicately complex raspberry and stony mineral flavors that lead to a crisp finish. Drink now through 2023. Tasted twice, with consistent notes.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.