Winemaker Notes
This ruby colored Pinot Noir offers bright aromatics of cherry, strawberry and raspberry. These flavors continue on the palate with a sweet approach and a bit of toastiness. The 2012 Aliette is refreshing with great acidity and well integrated tannins that linger through a long finish. We suggest opening an hour before drinking or decanting. Enjoy this wine now through 2022.
Pairs nicely with grilled salmon, or roasted chicken with raisins.
Vegan
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
An impressive effort with lots going on now and into the several years, the powerful 2012 WillaKenzie Estate Aliette Pinot Noir packs the palate with rich, ripe raspberry and strawberry flavors; has an almost New World twist to it; long and lasting in the finish. Could be liking a get together with a plate of grilled lamb on a Saturday night. (Tasted: March 10, 2015, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
This selection is from the winery’s first planted vineyard, now nearing 20 years of age. It’s all Pommard clone, offering a burst of pretty cherry fruit backed with stiff tannins and a streak of iron. Still showing some sharp edges, it’s just out of 15 months in 50% new oak, and will benefit from aerating or further bottle age.
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.