Winemaker Notes
While some element of whole cluster fermentations barrels was used, no new barrels were incorporated so as to show the clearest path from soil to wine as possible. This wine has a dynamic set of vineyards that make it up. What comes forth is pure Dundee Hills goodness. Red fruits and spices combine on an incredible textural lattice making this wine both edu-mah-cational and very difficult to not find appealing. Come for the geology, stay for the incredible taste.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a blend designed to showcase the volcanic Jory soils of the Dundee Hills. It's a compelling wine, with chiseled flavors of raspberry fruit and wet rock. The definition, focus and length are exceptional, and despite its youth it's a wine that's already beginning to display its full potential.
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Wine Spectator
Vibrant yet graceful, featuring expressive raspberry and tart cherry aromas and spirited orange peel, spice box and dark tea accents that take on complexity toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2027. 266 cases made.
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.