Winemaker Notes
Alive with the vitality and bounty of a Willamette summer, the 2017 Conifer has wavy structure, gravitas, and nice weight. Bazooka Bubble Gum, pine duff, broken twigs and black pepper aromas give way to blood orange, Cherry ChapStick, and rose petal perfume on the palate. Notes of serviceberry and tangelo lead to a slightly saline, and sappy red fruit on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Impressive for its detailed structure and rich polish, this shows expressive raspberry, black tea, sweet anise and forest floor accents that with finish with silky, medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2030.
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James Suckling
Opens with a wealth of baking spices and pastry, as well as baked blueberry and rose hip. Red fruit rises up in the mix with air. The palate delivers a smooth line of poached-raspberry flavor. Pure and ripe.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir Conifer opens slowly to notes of red berries, powdered sugar, dusty earth and amaro with accents of dried flowers. The palate is delicate, silky and fresh with a lifted finish.
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.