Lavinea Temperance Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir 2018
-
Suckling
James -
Spectator
Wine -
Dunnuck
Jeb -
Enthusiast
Wine
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Attractive dark crimson color, almost saturated to the edge. Complex aromas of dark wild berry fruit, lavender, and dusty earth and wild herbs on a warm day. Impactful entry with volume and weight, though not at all heavy. The concentrated and still dense medley of black, red, and dried blue berry flavors are intermingled with notes of earth and stones. Refined tannins are well-integrated, and the acidity provides super length. Chewy and ripe, with a very promising future.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This is toned between red and blue fruit with cherry and blueberry, as well as a red-plum edge. Very pure, ripe and vivid nose. The palate has impressive depth and build with ripe dark-cherry and plum flavors driving a long, composed statement of quality pinot noir. This is impressive. Drink or hold.
-
Wine Spectator
Impeccably structured and savory, with black cherry and savory underbrush notes that show hints of smoked meat, building tension and richness on the way to medium-grained tannins. Drink now.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Pinot Noir Temperance is ripe with dried cherry, more dry extract, rocky earth, and dusty. It is a firmly structured wine with dried cranberry, baking spice, and tea leaf.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Tart and acidity-driven, this is an unusual example of this vineyard, especially in this excellent vintage. Many Temperance Hill wines seem more generous with their fruit. Here there's a whiff of funk and plenty of citrus, along with mixed flavors of purple fruits leading into astringent, tea-like tannins. Give this ample aeration to help open it up.
Other Vintages
2016-
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine -
Wong
Wilfred -
Spirits
Wine &
Lavinea’s definition means “of the vineyard.” Lavenia is committed to advancing the reputation of Oregon Pinot Noir and Chardonnay by bringing to the attention of the world the Willamette Valley’s finest vineyard sites. Encompassing 5 vineyards; Tualatin Estate, Lazy River, Nysa, Elton, and Temperance Hill.
Tualatin Estate Vineyard, established in 1973, is one of the oldest and most respected vineyard sites in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Wine grapes from this 145-acre vineyard have produced world-renowned wines for over 40 years. Tualatin is the only vineyard to have won the Best of Show for both the red and white categories at the London International Wine Competition in the same year. Tualatin’s Pinot Noir captured the Governor’s Trophy, Oregon’s most prestigious wine award, two years consecutively in 1994 and 1995. This is a feat unduplicated by any Oregon winery.
Lazy River Vineyard lies on the steep south facing slope of Mt. Richmond in the Northwest Willamette Valley, three and one half miles from Yamhill, Oregon. From the top of the hill one looks down to the mixed terrain, interlocking puzzle pieces of woods, rolling meadows, grape vines and ponds. The land is separated north from south by a meandering small river, which by August is typically dry.
Nysa Vineyard sits at 620-780 feet elevation in the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s northern Willamette Valley. Nysa spans 41 acres of volcanic Jory soil with basalt bedrock 8 to 12 feet below the surface. The high percentage of clay combines with soil depth to hold moisture late into the season, permitting dry farming.
In 2007 Elton Vineyards was named one of Oregon’s top ten vineyards by Wine Press Northwest, and in 2006 Wine & Spirits listed it as one of the five key vineyards in the new Eola-Amity Hills American Viticultural Area. Owned by Dick and Betty O’Brien, the vineyard was planted on land inherited from Betty’s parents, Elton and Peggy Ingram – hence the name Elton Vineyards and the address on Ingram Lane. The first five acres of wine-grapes were planted in 1983 by the OBriens. The vineyard now includes sixty acres planted on east-southeast slopes of the Eola Hills, just west of Hopewell, in Yamhill County, in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. The elevation rises from 250-500 feet, and the vineyard soil is primarily Jory and Nekkia.
Perched at very high elevation above Bethel Heights Vineyard overlooking down the mouth of the Van Duzer Corridor, Temperance Hill is truly on the fringe of grape growing boundaries. This second generation vineyard was first planted in 1981 by the Koo family on what is believed to be the remnants of an ancient volcano. Dai Crisp, one of the pioneers of organic grape growing in the Willamette Valley took over management in 1999 and began farming it in accordance with Oregon Tilth Organic Certification standards. It’s high and cool location produces wines of exception, providing excellent growing conditions for Pinot Noir often resulting in outstanding wines with tremendous aging potential. Nicknamed “the staircase vineyard”, we are proud to be amongst the twenty-two wineries that source fruit from this amazing site. We share it’s it’s mid-step, between the blocks of Bergström and Adelsheim, with glorious south facing slopes.
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.