Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This savory pinot leads with beguiling scents of plum and anise, suggesting even in its bouquet that it's a high-toned wine. The fresh core of fruit is supported by a fine vinous texture and a white pepper spiciness that runs through many St. Innocent wines, a character winemaker Mark Vlossak attributes to his preference for warmer fermentations. With firm soil-inflected tannins, this is poised for a long life. Or serve it now with wild mushroom pasta.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A St. Innocent 2009 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill displays candied and maraschino cherry with a sizzle of cinnamon, but also – somehow without any sense of misfit – tart-edged blackberry, charred red meats, and savory pan scrapings from same, leading to a vibrant finish of uncontrolled salivation, intense spice, and sappy-sweet persistence. I'd plan to follow this for at least a decade.
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.”
Running north to south, adjacent to the Willamette River, the Eola-Amity Hills AVA has shallow and well-drained soils created from ancient lava flows (called Jory), marine sediments, rocks and alluvial deposits. These soils force vine roots to dig deep, producing small grapes with great concentration.
Like in the McMinnville sub-AVA, cold Pacific air streams in via the Van Duzer Corridor and assists the maintenance of higher acidity in its grapes. This great concentration, combined with marked acidity, give the Eola-Amity Hills wines—namely Pinot noir—their distinct character. While the region covers 40,000 acres, no more than 1,400 acres are covered in vine.