Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Pinot Noir Block 31 is more deeply colored. It sports a brooding bouquet of spicy black fruits, earth notes, Asian spices, black cherry and blueberry. Mouth-coating, dense, rich, and loaded with flavor, it contains enough underlying structure to evolve for a minimum of 4-5 years. There is a strong chance that this powerful yet elegant Pinot will see its 20th birthday in fine form.
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Wine Spectator
Polished, creamy and generous with its ripe plum and currant flavors, integrating seamlessly with hints of crème brûlée and nutmeg on the long, vivid finish. A big wine that dances easily. Drink now through 2018. 294 cases made.
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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.