Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Some fresh charcuterie and ferment-derived meatiness that is a hallmark of many modern pinots. The palate has a neat array of ripe, darker berries and plums with a strong, vibrant and powerful thread of tannins to close. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Reserve Pinot Noir is pale to medium ruby-purple in color with blackberry and bramble berry jam on the nose plus cinnamon stick, nutmeg, oolong tea and underbrush notes. Medium to full-bodied, it fills the mouth with ripe, dark fruits, with a great frame of grainy tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing long and spicy.
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Wine Spectator
Graceful yet vibrant, with expressive cherry and rose petal aromas and sleekly elegant raspberry and green tea flavors. Drink now through 2023.
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Tasting Panel
Animal on the nose and an earthy character. The fruit is generous and the finish is long. Great complexity
Located in the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley in the Dundee Hills AVA, Stoller uniquely offers world class wines and genuine hospitality in a stunning setting. Owners Bill and Cathy Stoller purchased the nearly 400 acre property, which was originally his family’s turkey farm, in 1993 and crafted the winery’s inaugural Pinot Noir in 2001. Their vision of innovation blending vineyard stewardship with environmental sustainability was recognized in 2006 when Stoller became the first LEED® certified winemaking facility in the United States attaining the rare Gold level certification. Today, the winery features panoramic views including Mt. Hood, ample outdoor space for relaxation and guest houses.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.