Winemaker Notes
A nice deep inhale of spice and blackberries with a touch of chocolate. Pure fruit flavors lavishly roll across the tongue with true complexity and a nod toward the soil - tender flavors of earth, minerality, and an essence of myrrh. It is rich and succulent on the palate with a long dark cherry finish. I've not said this before... this is my favorite ROCO Willamette Valley to date.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Bright and jazzy, with crisp tannins around a lively core of peppermint-accented raspberry. Stays light and agile as the finish revs up. Best from 2012 through 2018.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley delivers a pleasing perfume of cedar, spice box, rose petal, black cherry, and black raspberry. Firm on the palate with a smooth texture, layered fruit, and lively acidity, it is likely to evolve for 2-3 years but can be approached now.
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.