2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Wine Spectator - 92 Points

Supple, silky and remarkably open-textured, this just glows with beautiful plum, currant and a hint of lime in the background, delicately framed with oak. The fruit wins in the end, and this lingers for days. - Harvey Steiman

Wine Advocate - 91 Points

The 2006 Pinot Noir is a blend of estate fruit from Chehalem Mountains and fruit from Dundee Hills. Dark ruby-colored, it has an expressive bouquet of spice box, earth notes, cherry, and raspberry. This is followed by a medium- to full-bodied wine with layers of savory, spicy red fruits, excellent balance, and a lengthy finish. - Harvey Steiman

International Wine Cellar -
90 Points

Deep red. Seductive perfume of red and dark berry preserves, Asian spices, anise and dried rose. Medium-bodied black raspberry and candied cherry flavors stain the palate, complemented by floral pastille and cinnamon qualities. The spiciness builds on the finish, which is pure, focused and very long. This is a side project of Rollin Soles, Argyle's winemaker, and his wife Corby. - JR

Tasting Notes

This wine is a blend of the winemaker's favorite Willamette Valley Pinot Vineyards including his own Wit's End Vineyard. Tasted early, this wine already is a winner. During the cool extended fall of 2005 Rollin had the advantage of more than two decades of Oregon wine making to handle this especially cold, wet vintage. The wine is dark, smooth and full of rich berry flavors with wonderful cool climate Pinot Noir characteristics.

Rollin says...

Pretty frickin good! The 06 Willamette Valley Pinot is translucent ruby red in color with a concentrated black cherry nose that has a lively touch of rhubarb pie and a spice rack that includes black pepper and cinnamon. It is very rich in the mouth yet has a tangy, jazzy, cherry fruit, with back pepper and hits of blueberry in the finish. The tangy mouth leads to a creamy texture when sampled with rich foods; even anchovies!

Corby says...

The color is a lovely dark red garnet. At first there is a hint of rose petals in the nose, spice, cinnamon, a bit of cobblestone earthiness. There are nice full dark berry flavors in the front of the mouth with a red spicy center, and a long creamy finish. I love the wonderfully balanced acids and tannin in this wine and can?t wait to drink it with a variety of foods. In the mouth I get deep black cherry, cinnamon and hints of vanilla with a drop of rich earthiness to round it off. This wine has an edginess to it that says ?this is special? which is partly because 06 vintage was spectacular in general.

Production Notes

The 2006 vintage was the warmest growing season Oregon had experienced since 1992. By mid May the temperatures were already creeping up into the 90's and remained in the 80's-90 through much of September. Phenomenal! ROCO's Wits' End Vineyard sits on the SW facing slope of the Chehalem Mountains and catches the cool evening breezes coming in from the Oregon coast, offering relief from the hot days. Great weather tricked the vines into setting a big crop. Not to be fooled, we removed 50% of the crop in early August to further concentrate the finished wine. While there was a short week of drizzle in early September that threatened to ruin a perfect crop - we were fortunate enough to harvest the grapes at their perfection the day before the rains fell. ROCO was picked on September 16 at peak flavor ripeness and in bright sunshine conditions.

Purchase This Wine

$30.00 per bottle

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