Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Savory and sanguine in its initial impression, this estate wine from young vine fruit perks up with air, revealing dark plum fruit and hints of rye seeds. It finishes savory, with an impression of richness that lasts. (500 cases)
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Wine Spectator
Soft in texture, ripe in flavor, with cola-accented blackberry, cherry and dried blueberry flavors that point into a long and peppery finish. Drink now through 2020. 600 cases made.
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Wine Enthusiast
The ripeness is evident in the full-bodied, round fruit flavors of plum and black cherry. Gentle suggestions of clean earth, graphite and coffee grounds bring up further flavor notes as it winds through the finish.
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.