Winemaker Notes
The wine has aromas of spearmint, plum reduction sauce, and white puffy clouds with flavors of barely ripe red fruit, rich umami, and lightly roasted coffee.
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir Slope is rich with kirsch, umami with dried porcini, lavender, and licorice, and on the palate, it is fleshy with blackberry, fresh leather, and iron-rich earth. Drink 2024-2034.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir Slope is pleasantly restrained and earthy. Medium ruby-purple in color, it has intense aromas of cranberries, blueberries, potpourri, tobacco and tea leaves. The medium-bodied palate is chalky and fresh with concentrated, mineral-driven fruits and a very long finish.
-
Decanter
A study in balance this Pinot from two blocks of the Zena Crown vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills delivers energy and depth with mastery. Inky sois bois aromatics flirt with hints of dark stone minerality and savoury green herbs. The palate has real verve and freshness, while blue and red fruits merge with soy, umami and balsamic notes, highlighted by fresh eucalyptus. The texture is fine, with elegance and richness fused in a lengthy, contemplative finish.
-
Wine Spectator
Like a brooding teenager, this Pinot has a lot going for it but patience is required. Offers notes of blueberry, stony minerality and forest floor framed by a tannic bite on the finish. Best from 2023 through 2030.
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.