St. Innocent Villages Cuvee Pinot Noir 2013 Front Label
St. Innocent Villages Cuvee Pinot Noir 2013 Front Label

Winemaker Notes

The 2013 Villages Cuve Pinot noir returns to the "red wine with white meat and fish" profile I intended for our milti-site Pinot noir. The lovely summer and early harvest in 2013 provided fruit on the edge of ripeness. The cooler temperatures and rain that that began in late September created more balanced and finesse-driven wines. The percentage of fruit from Vitae Springs Vineyard decreased in 2013 because of crop failures due to frost and rain during bloom. Almost half of the Villages Cuve came from mature plantings at our estate, Zenith Vineyard. This is the first time Shea and Temperance Hill wines were included giving it a broader and more layered profile.

It has a nose with nuanced red cherry, berry and cola with, ground spices, menthol, anise, and fresh cut flower notes. It is layered in the mouth with tart cherry, cranberry, wild berry flavors with dark spices, earth, and hints of coffee, cedar, and sassafras. The Villages Cuve will benefit from being opened and decanted for 1-2 hours. Its balanced and layered flavor profile makes it a great match for a wide variety of fish, wild bird, pork and other medium-bodied preparations. Bottled in September '14, it is approachable now and can be aged up to 5 years to gain complexity.

Professional Ratings

  • 91
    There’s a sumptuous oak character to this pinot, a blend drawn largely from Eola–Amity Hills sources including Zenith, Mark Vlossak’s estate vineyard. It takes a day for that nutty graham-cracker sweetness to recede, and when it does, some beautiful fruit is revealed, dark, concentrated and grippy. This needs a year in the cellar to knit.
St. Innocent Winery

St. Innocent Winery

View all products
Image for  content section
View all products
Image for Willamette Valley Pinot Noir content section
View all products

Home of some of the planet’s most amazingly elegant and expressive Pinot noir, the Willamette Valley is a pastoral, mixed landscape of green, bucolic rolling hills, dramatic forestlands and small, independent, friendly wine growers. As a leader in environmental stewardship, the valley has some of the nation’s most protective land use policies, with two-thirds of its vineyards farmed sustainably and over half, organically. While the valley claims a cool, continental climate, and is heavily influenced by the cold, moist winds of the Pacific Ocean, its warm and dry summers allow for the steady, even ripening of Pinot noir.

The potential of Willamette Valley Pinot noir continues to attract the investment of serious growers and winemakers both locally and from abroad, as naturally the finished wines bring accolades from professionals and enthusiasts. With a range of styles from delicate dried cherry, raspberry and hibiscus to stronger notes of truffle, mocha, plum and spice, a fine Willamette Valley Pinot noir is a perfect expression of both character and grace.

EPC28948_2013 Item# 142237