Winemaker Notes
#39 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2018
This wine is a smoking deal! We work with 8 Pinot Noir vineyards, all of which we make at least one vineyard designated bottling from, and this bottling simply takes the barrels that are more precocious or don’t fit in with the profile of the vineyard designated bottling. 75% of this comes from Ribbon Ridge and Chehalem Mountains AVAs, 15% comes from the Dundee Hills AV and the rest, while designated Willamette Valley AVA is all from Freedom Hill Vineyard. There are seriously great bones here and this wine will stand up to many, many much higher priced bottlings.
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
In the winery the philosophy of attention to the smallest details is further extended all the way from the fermenting must to the final bottling process. All of our wines at all of their points of evolution are handled and manipulated as little as possible while being smelled and tasted on a regular basis. Our selection of barrels has been limited to one cooper noted for producing some of the best made Pinot Noir barrels in the world. As we produce as many as 15-16 different bottlings of Pinot Noir under our own label each vintage the decisions we make about the quality of every single barrel is quite rigorous ensuring that each bottling represents the best possible wine from each vineyard with which we work.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.