Winemaker Notes
Balcombe Vineyard is located toward the top of the Dundee Hills on Breyman Orchard Rd. at the southern end of the Dundee Hills and this is certainly the most quintessential Dundee Hills Pinot Noir that they make. Ever since we first bottled it in 2000 this wine has been about how the texture and the flavor co-mingle to deliver the experience that is this wine.
This bottling is done with 20% whole cluster fermentation so, this still displays the natural Dundee Hill-ness that is the hallmark of this wine but the whole clusters provide structure, more aromatic depth and complexity as well as a more focused and precise view of this site and appellation. This will be a superstar for people who enjoy the sensual side of Oregon Pinot Noir.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Spirited, but refined and focused, with dynamic raspberry, green tea and orange zest flavors that build tension toward well-groomed tannins. Drink now through 2026.
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.