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Van Duzer Vineyards 2012 Saffron Fields Pinot Noir, Yamhill-Carlton, $60
By Great Northwest Wine on July 10, 2015
Burgundy native Florent-Pierre Merlier develops 10 expressions of Oregon Pinot Noir, and while most of them are from the cool, Eola-Amity Hills west of Salem, he does work with two Yamhill-Carlton sites for his wine club. Saffron Fields, a former grass seed farm near the town of Yamhill, was first planted to vines in 2007. Here, it yields a remarkably complex nose of sweet cherries and dark raspberry with milk chocolate, California peppercorns, mint, orange peel and rain forest earthiness. Those ripe cherries and raspberries return as bright flavors, surrounded by an elegant tannin structure and a juicy finish.
Rating: Outstanding!
Production: 167 cases
Alcohol: 14.4%
[…] risotto and rack of lamb. This earned a gold medal at the 2016 Cascadia Wine Competition, and Van Duzer’s 2012 edition from Saffron Fields earned an “Outstanding!” from us last […]