Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Expressive and beautifully built, with raspberry and rose petal aromas and plush, structured flavors of cherry, spiced cinnamon and dark tea that build power. Shows a slight bite of tannins toward the finish
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Tasting Panel
Dark red. Lively, sharply focused aromas of fresh raspberry, candied flowers and spicecake, backed by a zesty mineral nuance. Juicy, incisive strawberry, bitter cherry and peppery spice flavors deepen and gain sweetness with air while maintaining urgency. At once concentrated and nervy, finishing with excellent focus and suave, late-arriving tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
From vines planted in 1984 and 1990, this offers subtle, strawberry, raspberry and cherry flavors, accented with refreshing minerality. Its acidity a faint lime flavor, and as is true of all this winery's offerings, the overall balance is impeccable.
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.”
Ribbon Ridge is a regular span of uplifted, marine, sedimentary soils (called Willakenzie), whose highest ridge elevations twist like a ribbon. An early settler from Missouri named Colby Carter noticed this unique topography and gave the region its name in 1865—though it wasn’t declared its own AVA until 140 years later, in 2005. The AVA is enclosed by mountains on all sides between Yamhill-Carlton and the Chehalem Mountains, and is actually part of the larger Chehalem Mountains AVA. Its soils have a finer texture than its neighbors with parent materials composed of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Given its presence of natural aquifers in this five square mile area, most vineyards are actually easily dry farmed!