St. Innocent Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir 2018
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Bright, medium ruby color. Dense and exotic flowers, layered with raspberry, dusty and dark aromas that are very typical of Shea. Quite fresh while deep flavors quickly emerge on a concentrated palate of dense dark red fruit, dried flowers and earth. This an early snapshot of a very complex wine that will emerge over months to decades of aging. The finish has a rich density while fresh fruit persists. This is a vintage with balanced concentration and lively clarity that can be opened up in the years to come with excitement.
Pair with lamb chops or duck breast with lentils.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Limpid ruby-red. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes fresh raspberry and boysenberry, pungent flowers and exotic spices, and a spicy nuance builds as the wine opens up. There's a compelling blend of power and finesse to the appealingly sweet red and blue fruit and floral pastille flavors, which firm up slowly through the midpalate. Closes sappy, youthfully chewy and impressively long, with reverberating floral and spice notes and well-knit tannins that add framework and final grip.
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Wine Spectator
Detailed and structured, with boysenberry, sweet anise and fresh violet accents that gather tension and richness toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2029.
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James Suckling
Strawberry and cherry pie with fresh flowers and a hint of pie crust. Medium body with crushed stone and subtle fruit. Creamy and polished texture to the finish. Drinkable now, but better in 2024.
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St. Innocent produces small lot, handmade wines: seven single vineyard Pinot noirs and a blended Pinot noir called the Villages Cuvée, two Chardonnay from Dijon clone plantings, two Pinot gris, and a Pinot blanc.
The philosophy behind the winemaking at St Innocent is that the function of wine is to complement and extend the pleasure of a meal. The characteristics of a wine should enhance different food and flavor combinations - this interaction amplifies the pleasure of a meal. To this end, St. Innocent wines tend toward higher acid levels, and more diverse and balanced flavors.
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.”
Yamhill-Carlton, characterized by pastoral, rolling hills composed of shallow, quick-draining, ancient marine soil, is ideal for Pinot noir and other cool-climate-loving varieties. It is in the rain shadow of the Coast Range to its west, whose highest point climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet. Yamhill-Carlton is actually surrounded by mountains on three sides: Chehalem Mountains to the north, the Dundee Hills to the east and the western Coast Range to its west, which, when it lets Pacific air through, serves to cool the region.
Vineyards grow on the ridges surrounding the two small communities of Yamhill and Carlton and cover about 1,200 acres of this 60,000 acre region, which roughly makes a horse-shoe shape on a map.