Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Dark, dense and detailed, this outstanding wine seamlessly layers wild berries, cedar, sandalwood and sassafras. It’s smooth and seductive, powerful and polished, with thick, ripe and fulsome tannins. Editors' Choice.
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James Suckling
Decadent aromas of strawberries, toffee and hints of smoked meat follow through to a medium to full body, soft tannins and a juicy finish. Very fine and soft.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard comes from vines planted between 2002 and 2005 in Block 6 within the vineyard. There is a ferrous tincture on the nose that infuses the red berry fruit, quite fresh vis-a-via St Innocent's other 2013 Pinot Noirs, a touch of gypsum emerging with time in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with redcurrant and cranberry notes, a fine backbone here with just the right amount of salinity on the structured finish. Give this a year or two in bottle and it should drink well for another 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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.