Winemaker Notes
Braised meats, roasts, mushroom or dishes with eastern spices match well with this solidly structure Pinot noir. It will benefit from decanting 1-2 hours before serving and can be aged up to 12 years.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A succulent style with bright, red-cherry fragrance and hints of dry stones, leading to a palate that has a sleek, focused shape that carries a long, central run of fresh, fine tannin. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard opens with tar, damp soil and decaying leaves scents, with a core of blackberries and black cherries. In the mouth, it's medium-bodied, concentrated and earthy with a grainy frame and long, fresh finish. This will benefit from a decant.
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.”
Stretching southwest from the city of McMinnville, the AVA with the same name covers about 40,000 acres across 20 miles until it meets the Van Duzer Corridor. This corridor is the only break in the Coast Range whose gap allows the cool Pacific Ocean air to flow eastward into the Willamette Valley.
The Pacific's moderating winds hit McMinnville’s south and southeast facing slopes where cool-climate varieties—namely Pinot noir and Pinot blanc thrive on ridges at between 200 to 1,000 feet in elevation.
Soils here are primarily uplifted marine sedimentary loam and silt, with alluvial formations; McMinnville receives less rainfall than its neighbors to the east because it is situated in the rain shadow of the Coast Range.