Winemaker Notes
Our Dundee Hills Estate Pinot Noir captures and expresses the delicate fruit characteristics associated with this varietal, and we balance that with structure and age-ability. This blend represents our entire Estate with barrels selected from nearly every corner of the property. Our 2017 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir exhibits aromas of leather and spice. The palate is rich with dark fruit, dried currant, and a hint of cinnamon. Enhanced by flavors of grilled lamb sausage, or a warm bowl of piperade, typical Basque dish prepared with onion, green peppers, and tomatoes sautéed and flavored with red Espelette pepper.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A complex, youthful nose with plenty of potential, as the spicy oak sits up across brambly, fresh and vibrant cherry aromas. The palate has a very succulent feel – plenty of moreish appeal here. The tannins are so juicy and alluring. Really expansive at the finish. Drink or hold.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Sokol Blosser Estate Pinot Noir is well-built and persistent. TASTING NOTES: This wine is active with dense, black fruit aromas and flavors. Pair its richness with grilled lamb chops. (Tasted: March 4, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
A wonderful wine, this encapsulates both the natural finesse of Pinot Noir and the precision of the better 2017s. Raspberry, soft tanned leather and sandalwood highlights meld nicely. It's a seductive, fairly open wine, drinking well at this young age, with just a hint of pine threading through the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Vivid orange blossom and cherry aromas open to vibrant raspberry flavors that finish with refined tannins. Drink now through 2026.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.