Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Shea is one of the Willamette Valley's most revered sites, and an all-star list of wineries compete for the fruit. Here the bright flavors of ripe raspberries are elevated with tangy acids, putting a tight frame of citrus around the core. A whiff of sea breeze comes up as well, enticing the taster to explore a bit more deeply. Already irresistible, this evocative wine will cellar well for at least a decade. Drink now through 2028.
Cellar Selection. -
James Suckling
Aromas of ripe-berry, plum and cherry character. Medium to full body, velvety tannins and a rich and flavorful finish. A wine that balance richness with freshness. Beautiful now. Why wait?
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard has an attractive bouquet with lively aromas of wild strawberry, blackberry, iris and a subtle menthol notes that skulk in through aeration in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, crisp acidity, gentle at first, but quite intense towards the finish with touches of blood orange, spice and sous-bois infusing the red fruit. This is very fine.
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Wine Spectator
Bright and snappy, with raspberry, cherry and smoky, minerally notes coming together with impressive focus, broadening out into a long and generous finish. Has presence and depth. Best from 2017 through 2024.
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.