Winemaker Notes
Amassed from multiple vineyard blocks and clones, this wine is shaped like an hourglass – it is rich and opulent on the front, then tightens across the mid-palate before broadening out to a lush finish. Expressing Autumn, S (The Sum) leads with maple syrup, broken twigs, freshly tilled soil, and blackberry on the nose, with dark roasted coee on the finish. 60% whole-cluster fermentation bolsters the wine, sustaining the tannic imprint with wavy texture on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby-purple, the 2018 Pinot Noir The Sum has alluring scents of cranberry sauce, tea leaves, gravel dust and iron with meaty undertones and wafts of iodine. The medium-bodied palate is grainy and refreshing with concentrated, savory fruit and a flourish of spicy accents across the long, detailed finish. With its structural harmony and detailed intensity, it's a great candidate for the cellar.
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Wine Spectator
This deeply structured red is distinctive for its brooding black raspberry, dark baking spice and crushed stone accents that build tension toward medium-grained tannins.
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.