The wine opens with red-blue fruit, with floral and earthy notes wafting from my Oregon Pinot Noir glass – yes, Riedel designed the first region-specific Pinot Noir glass for Oregon Wine – and there’s a reason why we use them. This Pinot Noir also demonstrates why it’s common to perceive forest floor, mushrooms, and earthy tones on the palate in Oregon Pinot Noirs.
This is an excellent wine – lush, rich, and velvety in texture with fruit and acid balanced, full-bodied with a long finish – My wife said it’s one of the best Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs she’s had in recent memory, and she’s not given to superlatives.
The flagpole block of the estate vineyards is comprised of the Wadensvil clone of Pinot Noir. Fruit was picked on October 7th, 2023, to give you an idea of how late harvests can be in Oregon. The wine is still a toddler at only three years of age. I’ll be revisiting this over the next seven to 10 years to see how it develops in my cellar.
Read Eric Misiewicz’s Wine Characters interview, and “Think Savory” when you taste their flagship wine.