Purple Hands Freedom Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir 2017
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Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Flavors of huckleberry, mulberry, candied red fruit, silky toasted coffee, strawberry, cola cream, red licorice and ripe watermelon.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Impressive detail to the aromas here with a ripe red-cherry and spice nose that offers a lot of early complexity. The palate has impressive depth and detail with elegant, fine tannins, carrying plenty of blueberry and spiced-cherry flavors. Drink or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Plush and vibrant, with well-structured raspberry, green tea and savory spice flavors that build richness and tannins on a zesty finish. Drink now through 2026.
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Wine Enthusiast
A pleasing, toasty wine, this pushes precise, slightly high-toned black cherry fruit front and center. There are barrel spices in abundance, notably cinnamon, and a lightly earthy tone to the rather soft tannins. Both Pommard and Wädenswil clones are in the mix.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple, the 2017 Pinot Noir Freedom Hill Vineyard comes from Coury, Pommard and Wadenswil clone vines planted in Bellpine soils at 400-feet elevation. The nose gives up potting soil, tar and smoked meat aromas over a core of red currants and wild blackberries, plus nuances of licorice, oolong tea leaves, amaro and potpourri. Medium-bodied, it unfurls slowly to floral-tinged blue fruits, sturdily framed and juicy, with a long, spicy finish. This will benefit from another year in bottle. Rating: 92+
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Purple Hands Vineyards celebrates site-specific pinot noir and chardonnay that unearth the Willamette Valley’s long evolutionary history. Using traditional winemaking techniques, they strive to produce wines that convey an honest expression of each of their vineyards—its grapevines and cultivation, soil and stone, sunshine and rain. All of their wines undergo native fermentation and remain unfined and unfiltered at bottling to preserve their natural, wild character. Achieving elegance in this pursuit is the passion and art of their craft.
Over the past 40 years, Cody’s family has created a legacy of quality in the Oregon wine industry. Their winemaking styles and techniques helped Oregon’s Willamette Valley become the premium Pinot noir producing region in the world. At Purple Hands, Cody continues to build on the standard of excellence initiated by the previous generation.
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.