Winemaker Notes
This dark ruby wine begins with rich dark cherry, sweet earth, cocoa, and hint of balsamic. Very broad and rich flavors of dark spice, dried Royal Anne cherries with lip smacking ripe tannins that fill the front of your palate. The red fruit flavors become sweeter as the wine moves to the back of your mouth with soft and juicy acidity and red floral perfume notes creating a lovely balance to its power. Easily age-worthy for up to 15 years, it is lovely now.
Great with grilled red meats, the flavor profile suggests its usual match with chocolate may be a stepped up with this vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Like cracking open an ashen stone to find a bevy of autumnal spices, incense, dried citrus peels and sage, the 2021 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard makes itself known in the glass. This is silky and enveloping, nearly weighty in feel, matched by depths of ripe red and blue fruits that swirl across a stream of tantalizing acidity. Sweet mineral tones form a crunchy sensation toward the close as the 2021 leaves the palate reeling with spicy tension, tapering off tannic yet fresh. If you choose to pop the 2021 today, make sure to give it a good decant to allow its aromatics to fully open.
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James Suckling
A generous, robust and super-concentrated red that’s alive in black-cherry flavors on a vivid, acid-driven texture. Moderate to full tannins and a full body add to the power and depth of this impressive wine from Mount Pisgah in Polk County.
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Wine Enthusiast
Balanced and packed with lively acidity, the Freedom Hill will revive the most jaded palate. Its aromas of blackberries, cherry blossoms, wet stones and seared steak are a meal, followed by a main course of dark raspberry, bay leaf, blood orange, cedar flavors and velvety tannins. Enjoy with grilled portobellos.
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.