Winemaker Notes
Purple Hands Kropf Vineyard Pinot Noir 2023 shows notes of leather, salted caramel, candied raspberry, red licorice, water crest, coffee, raspberry pie, bing cherry, sassafras, tenderloin, and salted taffy.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a site planted exclusively with 115 clones in 2008 on volcanic Jory soils, the 2023 Pinot Noir Kropf Vineyard has a bright red hue and is expressive in the glass, with sanguine and umami tones that shine. It offers notes of mint, cranberry cocktail, anise, bright spices, and orange peel. Medium-bodied, it has more focus and a linear feel, with a gravelly texture, well-defined tannins, balanced acidity, and a savory finish. Drink 2025-2040.
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Wine Spectator
Rich, pretty and fragrant, this Pinot offers layered and silky flavors of raspberry and cherry that take on rose petal and orange peel accents as this sails on the graceful finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2023 Purple Hands PINOT NOIR KROPF VINEYARD DUNDEE HILLS, WILLAMETTE VALLEY reveals a light-to-medium garnet color; fragrant spices lift gently from the glass; medium-bodied, supple, and silky on the palate, with a tender, flowing texture; red berry and earth tones intertwine seamlessly; long, lusty finish that lingers with quiet warmth. Pair with roast chicken with mushrooms or pork tenderloin with a light herb jus. (Tasted: 3/31/26, San Francisco, CA)
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James Suckling
This offers attractive aromas of sandalwood, cloves, dark cherries and blood oranges. It’s medium-bodied, ripe and spicy, yet cool and fresh, with fine, medium-firm tannins. Excellent depth. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Pinot Noir Kropf Vineyard has layered scents of raspberry, strawberry, charcuterie, rooibos tea and bitters. The medium-bodied palate is elegantly styled with concentrated yet refined, earthy flavors. It’s structured by silky tannins and fireworks of fresh acidity and has a long, nuanced finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
A one-two aromatic punch of blackberry jam and pine bark is accented by a trace of loamy soil. In a fruit gearshift on the palate, tart cranberry and sweet blueberry fruit flavors are spiced up by bits of wet slate and espresso. The wine's boisterous acidity and silky tannins keep things feeling fresh and lively.
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Decanter
Dark forest floor aromas from the Kropf Vineyard, a tiny, 2-acre plot in the Dundee Hills, show notes of oak spice tinged with dark violet florals. The palate is upright, and the taut red and blueberry fruits have ample tannin and structure, showing a wine that will need time to reveal itself.
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.