Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
At first sniff, the spicy red fruit is shy. With time the macerated strawberry and bright red-raspberry aromas announce their presence, along with touches of basil, lemon drops and fresh-cut hay. The wine’s lithe mouthfeel is matched by equally elegant flavors of chrysanthemum tea, bergamot and blackcap raspberry sorbet.
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Wine & Spirits
Tuscowallame (where the owls dwell) is Raptor Ridge’s first wine labeled under the new Laurelwood AVA, which shares the name of the soils on this 18-acre estate. Those soils seem to impart a dusty overlay to the Christmas spice and black-plum scents, the flavors lightly earthy, delivered with a lean grip. For Cornish hens.
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Wine Spectator
Sleek and focused, with bright raspberry and cherry flavors highlighted by tarragon and black tea. Finishes with refined tannins. Drink now through 2029.
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.