2023 Rascal Oregon Pinot Noir

The Pinot Noir has a brilliant ruby red color and is dominated by fruity notes of raspberries, red cherries, and plums with subtle sweet spice notes of cardamom, cedar and vanilla. On the palate this wine is soft and fresh with a round, balanced finish.

The grapes were 100% destemmed into stainless steel fermentation vessels and cold soaked for 3 to 5 days for gentle extraction of color and flavor. The wine was fermented at low temperatures to promote flavor development and increase complexity. The wine saw oak contact following complete malolactic fermentation, developing structure and contributing complexity.

The 2023 vintage began with a cool, wet early spring, which delayed bud break until the end of April. After bud break, the weather quickly warmed, and the combination of favorable weather and good soil moisture supported rapid canopy growth in May and June. Despite one of the latest bud breaks on record, bloom took place almost a week ahead of average timing in early to mid June, with vines at full trellis height. The weather during bloom was fair, leading to strong and even fruit set. Warm and temperate weather continued in June and July, and a brief heat spell in mid-August quickly gave way to more dry, moderate weather again until harvest began in mid-September. Brief rain showers towards the end of harvest extended the growing season for our later sites, and the maturity and integrity of the fruit across the board was excellent. The result was a vintage with fantastic balance and ethereal yet vivid flavors, embodying the tensions of a classic Willamette Valley growing season in which the weather seemed to deliver exactly what we needed just in time at every corner. The wines are at once serious and age-worthy and also precocious and easy to love in their youth–this vintage, which kept us guessing about what it might become all spring, is destined to be a classic.

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