Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of tar and asphalt with some dried-strawberry and lemon undertones. Medium body, fine tannins and a tangy finish. A little tight now still. Just starting to open up. Well done for the vintage.
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Wine Enthusiast
Look out Rutherford dust, here’s Eola-Amity dust. Soft and yes, dusty, this intriguing wine brings a sensation of well-tanned leather under black-cherry fruit. The finish adds a dash of beet root, and leaves with some stiffening tannins. Give it ample aeration and it will improve dramatically.
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.