Winemaker Notes
The 2016 vintage had a warm spring with record-breaking heat units in April and May. This transitioned us into the earliest harvest date on record. Lower elevation Dundee Hills started to pick the end of the second week of August, and our last fruit was in the door September 16th. The summer wasn’t overly warm, though just warm enough to keep the vines moving forward, developing into a beautiful growing season and harvest. I think you will see the wines balanced and rich in a traditional Purple Hands Style.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Combines a silky texture with a refined structure, offering generous notes of black cherry, clove and orange peel that build toward polished tannins. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple in color, the 2016 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard is scented of ripe red cherries, redcurrants and red berry preserves with sweet spice and earthy nuances. The palate is light to medium-bodied with red fruits flavors over hints of cinnamon stick, clove, red licorice and forest floor. It’s framed by very fine-grained tannins and has a great streak of acidity, finishing long.
Purple Hands Vineyards celebrates site-specific pinot noir and chardonnay that unearth the Willamette Valley’s long evolutionary history. Using traditional winemaking techniques, they strive to produce wines that convey an honest expression of each of their vineyards—its grapevines and cultivation, soil and stone, sunshine and rain. All of their wines undergo native fermentation and remain unfined and unfiltered at bottling to preserve their natural, wild character. Achieving elegance in this pursuit is the passion and art of their craft.
Over the past 40 years, Cody’s family has created a legacy of quality in the Oregon wine industry. Their winemaking styles and techniques helped Oregon’s Willamette Valley become the premium Pinot noir producing region in the world. At Purple Hands, Cody continues to build on the standard of excellence initiated by the previous generation.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.