Winemaker Notes
Sweet oak and tobacco dance around notes of raspberry, plum and fruit punch. A sweet and supple attack is balanced by a fresh line of acidity with hints of pomegranate, tea leaf and white pepper.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Strawberries and black cherries with stones and flowers. Medium body, firm and round tannins and a stone and mineral aftertaste to the fruit. Tight at the end.
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Wine Spectator
A wine with polish and presence, offering expressive cherry and pomegranate flavors, which have traces of black tea and savory spice and finish with medium-grained tannins. Drink now.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard pours a transparent ruby, with aromas of wild raspberry, clove, and dusty earth. The palate is silky, with round red fruit of baked strawberry, cherry pit, and shitake.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard has autumnal aromas of cranberries, forest floor, dark spices and orange peel. The light-bodied palate is vibrant and transparent with crunchy fruit 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.”
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.