Eyrie Sisters Vineyard Pinot Noir 2019
-
Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Named for the three Pinot sister varieties on the site, gris, blanc and noir, the four acres of Pinot here, planted in 1987 to Pommard and Wädenswil clones, often carry a flowery scent on top of earth and fruit. The elevation runs from 220’ at the bottom to 330’ at the top, and the exposure is directly south.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2019 Pinot Noir Sisters has a delicate perfume of raspberries, rhubarb, tar, orange peel and tea leaves with touches of flint. The light-bodied palate is powdery and fresh with fragrant floral character and a long finish.
-
James Suckling
This is a solid pinot with so much strawberry and tangerine character that it’s hard to put down. The tannins are very solid and slightly chewy, but I think this will come together beautifully. Try after 2024.
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.”
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.