Winemaker Notes
Aromas of cinnamon bark, mulled spices, chai tea, and juniper berry leap from the glass intermingled with notes of maple syrup, nutmeg, and baked apple. The generous mouth has notes of black licorice, vanilla powder, and a salinity that balances juicy fresh fruit with dusty, light tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Pinot Noir Reserve is pale to medium ruby-purple in color with a lovely nose of lilac perfume over fresh, pure crushed blueberry and blackberry fruit with layers of pink peppercorn, warm earth and autumn leaves. Light to medium-bodied and silky textured with loads of spice-laced blue and black fruit in the mouth, it has wonderful grainy tannins and juicy, mouthwatering acidity, finishing very long and spicy with licorice notes.
Rating: 93+ -
Tasting Panel
Meaty and dense with ripe cherry and savory notes alongside salinity and spice; another winner from this historic family winery, which celebrated its 45th anniversary during this vintage.
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Wine Spectator
Refined and graceful, with precise dark raspberry, licorice and clove flavors that take on richness and weight toward polished tannins. Drink now through 2023.
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.”
The Chehalem Mountains is a northwest-southeast span of several distinct mountains, ridges and peaks in the northern part of the Willamette Valley. Of all of Willamette Valley's smaller AVAs, it is closest to the city of Portland. Its highest summit, Bald Peak at an elevation of 1,633 feet, serves to generate cooler air for the rest of the AVA and its hillside vineyards. The region covers 70,000 acres but only 1,600 acres are planted to vines; soils of the Chehalem Mountains are a mix of basalt, ocean sediment and loess.