Winemaker Notes
Wichmann Vineyard sits at approximately 670 feet atop the Dundee Hills of Oregon's Willamette Valley. The vineyard consists of 100 percent, well-drained Jory soil that formed from basalt rock sediment. Dark reddish-brown in color, the loam, silt, and clay of this site form a layer more than 40 inches thick above their basalt subsurface—a perfect place to grow grapes of outstanding quality.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of blueberry, black tea and red plum sit within an array of forest leaves and bracken. The palate has impressively concentrated blueberries and blackberries. Smoothly rendered. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
The aromatics stand out here, with clover, wet hay and suggestions of watermelon, pomegranate and strawberries. Though it feels lightly ripened, the flavors are persistent and detailed, the finish textured. Aging 11 months in one-third new French oak adds a dash of cinnamon.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine feels cool with a hint of herbs, a nebbiolo-like dustiness to the tannins and tensile strength in the mineral tartness. It’s the sort of pinot noir to pour with brisket.
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Wine Spectator
A narrow beam of structure and intensity, with notes of blueberry and cherry, plus black tea and fresh earth accents that build toward medium-grain 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.”
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.