Winemaker Notes
The iconic Shea Vineyard comprises plantings across two distinct slopes in southeastern Yamhill-Carlton. The East Hill is the larger and steeper of the two, dropping several hundred feet across the site. Its oldest vines were planted in the late-1980’s and Shea Vineyard East Hill has since proven itself as one of the standards of West Coast Pinot Noir, producing muscular, meaty and age-worthy wines.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This has sophisticated earthy aromas with dried flowers and red cherries. Some autumnal, leafy notes on offer, too. The palate has impressive, succulent tannins that are super fine but densely layered. The drive is effortless, as good pinot should be. Red fruit abounds. Great pinot.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Pinot Noir Shea Vineyard East Hill offers a similar savory character yet has beautiful purity and precision, with spicy, earthy, nutty aromas and flavors. With good acidity, a great mid-palate, and outstanding balance, it needs 2-3 years of bottle age, but your patience will be rewarded.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir Shea East Hill Heritage Clones features crushed black cherries and black currants with nuances of dust, earth, pipe tobacco, cracked pepper and potpourri. Medium-bodied and silky, it offers a classy layering of fruit, spice and earth with great freshness and a long finish. This is a lovely example of a leaner, more ethereal style this vintage.
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.