Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Dark and burled, this wine’s initial intensity may lead you to expect something brooding. But with air and a little time the wine opens up, as if a breeze has passed through it, lightening it to raspberry flavors and a kiss of oak that guide the wine to the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Taut, spicy and distinctive, with atypical apricot and pear overtones and a light layer of gravelly tannins underlying a core of black cherry and smoke flavors. Has depth, but needs cellaring to harmonize.
Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.
The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.