Winemaker Notes
Shea Vineyard was first planted to wine grapes in the late 1980s. Today Shea Vineyard is a 200-acre property with 140 planted acres. 135 of these acres are planted to Pinot noir vines and the balance is planted to Chardonnay.
The 2017 vintage shows aromas of cinnamon, clove, spiced red and black fruit, caramelled cherry, savory blackberry, roasted pepper, cherry cola, blueberry pie.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very sultry nose with so much complex, savory earth and spice on offer, ahead of a very spicy and fragrant edge. The palate has super fine tannins and a very vibrant, concentrated core of blueberries and cherries. Good detail and length here. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The pale to medium ruby 2017 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard comes from vines planted in sedimentary soils at 600-feet elevation. It has a wonderful nose of spiced cranberry sauce, crushed blackberries, raspberries and red currants with notes of forest floor, pipe tobacco, dried violets and sweet spices. It's medium-bodied, silky and intense with loads of spicy flavor layers, a seamless frame and long, layered finish. Lovely!
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Wine Enthusiast
A great rendition spotlighting this iconic vineyard, it’s loaded with ripe black fruits, espresso, cola and clean earth flavors. The barrel spices, the balance, even the gentle sniff of leather, all work in concert to create a most pleasurable, lingering and complex tasting experience.
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Wine Spectator
Finely structured and sleek, with layered black raspberry, black tea and orange peel flavors that build tension toward polished tannins. Drink now through 2026.
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.”
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.