Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard has layered aromas of red cherries and berries, charcuterie, forest floor and well-integrated wafts of baking spice. The medium-bodied palate features bright, crunchy flavors. It’s framed by soft, dusty tannins and has a long, spicy finish.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard opens with an alluring bouquet of dusty violets, crushed blueberries and sweet smoke. The palate is soothingly round, with ultra-ripe red berry fruit lifted by cooling acidity. Fresh acidity keeps the mouth watering on the 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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.