Winemaker Notes
Freedom Hill Vineyard is the only Pinot Noir vineyard Patricia Green Cellars sources fruit from that is not in one of the smaller sub-AVAs of the Willamette Valley. It sits solely in the larger Willamette Valley AVA. While technically located in the Eola Hills, this site is just outside of the southwestern border of the Eola-Amity AVA in the town of Dallas. Historically, Freedom Hill Vineyard was known on labels like Panther Creek Cellars, Ken Wright Cellars, Bethel Heights Vineyard and St. Innocent Winery. It has a reputation for producing some of the largest scale and most structured Pinot Noirs in the valley. As phyloxera grabbed hold of the original plantings, the re-plantings and additions to the vineyard were put in on the common single-wire vertical trellis system that is most common in the Northern Willamette Valley. This has allowed for wines that still possess great intensity born from the Marine Sedimentary soil known as Bellpine. The finished wines currently flourish with tannin structure that is richer and more complex than wines from the early years.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard is sourced from several different sections of the vineyard planted at various times to various clones, including Pommard planted in 1978, Wadenswil planted in 2002 and 2006, Dijon planted in 2007 and Coury planted in 2010. Various percentages of whole cluster were used during fermentation, and the wine was matured in around 17% new French oak. It opens with flinty tones that give way to wild berry fruit, oolong tea leaves, Angostura bitters and bergamot. The light-bodied palate is silky and refreshing with understated, earth-laced flavors and a long, spicy finish.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.