Winemaker Notes
Grande Cuvée is our flagship Pinot Noir, made from a collection of top vineyards across the Willamette Valley. It has a welcoming nose of red plum, winter spices and damp soil. The palate is ample with a blush of fruit and fine tannins, tasting of pomegranate, marionberry, and crushed gravel. Dynamic texture makes for a lovely long finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A solidly built and vividly fruity wine. It boasts sour cherries, red cherries in the nose, leading to an almost chunky, chewy texture of acidity and lively tannins. It’s direct, bold and firm. Drink now or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Flavorful and scrumptious, this wine is those words and more. Its aromas juxtapose sweet red cherries with savory notes of braised rabbit rubbed with sage. The fruit is just as red and ripe on the palate, with red raspberries melding with unsweetened dark chocolate, straw and balsa. Pour this wine with a bowl of turkey chili and "Northern Exposure" reruns.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir Grande Cuvée wafts up with a mix of crushed cherries complemented by nuances of cocoa and spice. Silken in feel, it offers ripe red and blue fruits swirling throughout, offset by a tinge of citrus. The finish is marked by a web of fine tannins and a cascade of dark inner florals.
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Wine Spectator
Tangy and bright, with sleek flavors of cranberry and cherry accented by green tea as this zips along the zesty finish. Drink now through 2030.
Soléna is a combination of the words Solana and Soleil, celebrating the sun, moon, and cycles of life. Our story began in 2000 when our founders purchased the 80-acre estate which became our Domaine Danielle Laurent vineyard. Furthering their successful careers in the Oregon wine industry, Laurent Montalieu and Danielle Andrus gifted this vineyard to each other for their wedding, and began making wine under the label named Soléna after their newborn daughter.
Soléna Estate showcases the beauty of terroir in our site-specific wines. They craft delicious wine from our estate and other iconic vineyards around the Northwest. They're well known for ageable Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris all with Laurent's signature expressive aromatics and vibrant mid-palate. Visit our estate in Yamhill to see how they steward wines of legacy and purpose!
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.