Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Limpid ruby-red. Mineral-tinged black raspberry, cherry cola, pungent flowers and exotic spices on the highly perfumed nose. Palate-caressing red and dark berry, spicecake and candied rose flavors show superb clarity, underscored by a vein of juicy acidity. Concentrated but distinctly lithe in character, with a strikingly long, focused finish that features sneaky tannins and reverberating floral and spice notes.
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James Suckling
Bright and vivid aromas of pure strawberries and cherries with hints of fresh flowers. Medium to full body with firm, chewy tannins and a solid finish. Smoky undertone. Drink after 2023.
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Wine & Spirits
Mark Vlossak draws from windswept and shallow-soiled blocks at Temperance Hill, where the plantings date to 1984. This bottling is slow to rouse, earthbound and tobacco-scented. The fruit takes on a balsamic tone after a day of air, while the turf and cherry flavors feel balanced against each other, the warmth of the vintage translating to generous fruit and ripe but firm tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
Truffle and earth flavors abound here, with purple fruits in the background. The wine is full and round with ample acidity. Roughly one-fifth of the barrels were new.
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.