Domaine Drouhin Oregon Laurene Pinot Noir 2018
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
In many ways, the 2018 Laurène embodies what Domaine Drouhin loves most about wines from the Dundee Hills. Offering beautiful clarity and a garnet color on approach, the aromatics brim with notes of dried red cherry, spice, wild herbs, earth, and subtle oak. Characteristically elegant, the wine evolves on the palate, moving seamlessly from its pomegranate welcome into its detailed lines of clove, white pepper, and cranberry. As always, cellaring the Laurène over the next 5-15 years will be well rewarded.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Super complex and rich with a ripe array of red to dark-cherry and plum aromas, as well as toasted-spice oak influence. This has much to enjoy already. The palate has a very rich, fleshy and intense, layered appeal with a swirling, spicy thread of rich red cherries and long, fine, supple tannins.
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Wine Enthusiast
The lush aromatics immediately grab your attention with a tantalizing mix of berries and barrel toast. Already in perfect balance, this young wine weaves its components into a textural mesh highlighted with coffee liqueur and hints of fresh herb. Further bottle age and/or decanting is recommended.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2018 Pinot Noir Laurène opens with pure raspberry, rhubarb and aniseed perfume with accents of bergamot and forest floor. The medium-bodied palate is concentrated, super spicy, firm and very fresh, finishing uplifted and loaded with perfumed fruits. Give it another 2-3 years in bottle.
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Wine Spectator
A wine of polish and presence, with structured raspberry and cherry flavors that draw in tarragon and steely mineral accents as this builds tension toward fine-grained tannins. Drink now. through 2030. 3,260 cases made.
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Established in 1987, Domaine Drouhin Oregon is owned by famed Burgundy producer, Maison Joseph Drouhin. Hand-crafted by fourth generation winemaker, Veronique Drouhin-Boss, the distinctive Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays of Domaine Drouhin are prized for their elegance, balance and finesse, as well as their ability to age. Philippe Drouhin, Veronique's brother, is in charge of viticulture and has earned an international reputation for his work both in Burgundy and Oregon. Ninety acres of the 225-acre estate are now planted, with over 3100 vines per acre. Domaine Drouhin Oregon's landmark 4-level gravity flow winery is nestled into the heart of the Dundee Hills.
Robert Drouhin’s vision of an Oregon estate winery that could rival the great vineyards of Burgundy has been realized at DDO. From what began as test plantings of cloned Pinot Noir rootstock, Domaine Drouhin now encompasses 124 acres of hillside vineyards. Interspersed with the Pinot Noir vines are 11 acres of Chardonnay, planted at various elevations and, like in Burgundy, planted right alongside rows of Pinot Noir.
The Drouhin Family’s winemaking roots run deep, having taken hold in Burgundy’s best vineyards more than a century ago. Through the years, there has been a very clear link, a continuum, that inhabits Maison Joseph Drouhin, and now Domaine Drouhin Oregon.
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.