Winemaker Notes
Pairs nicely with duck confit or beef wellington.
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
This is the real deal, shows superb synergy between fruit, earth, oak, grower and winemaker, a concert in the bottle...the 2012 Willakenzie Estate Emery Pinot explodes onto the palate with power and finesse; lots going on here; great with grilled foods now and even better with more subtle entrees in the future. I could see this one in several years from now with an organic roast chicken. (Tasted: March 10, 2015, San Francisco, CA)
-
Wine Spectator
Sleek, open-textured and distinctive, with plum and red currant fruit. Shadings of orange peel and cardamom add to the complex, polished finish. Drink now through 2022
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.