Spiced strawberry, fresh lavender, raspberry tea. Wild huckleberry, tilled soil, tart cranberry reduction. Extraordinarily expansive and enveloping eruptions of plump dark cherry, rhubarb compote, and pomegranate boom with seductive succulence as notes of evergreen, iris, and cinnamon further enhance pronounced aromatics. Flutters of violet and blooming rose cascade into frame to contribute layers of decadent floral perfume combated by clean natural impressions of pine cone, peat moss, and sautéed mushroom. Hints of cardamom, nutmeg, and Chinese five spice bolster incredible fragrance with integrated barrel influence without detracting from earthy tones of iron, gravel, and forest floor. Tremendously expressive and ethereal on the nose yet still delightfully soft and understated on the palate; exhibiting an outgoing yet unobtrusive demeanor that beautifully marries perfume with precision. Medium in body with elevated smooth tannin backed by bright acidity. This 2016 "Plumlee Road" Pinot Noir by Montinore Estate is a captivating and impressively well-crafted red from the Willamette Valley.

While Oregon's Willamette Valley is known for producing some of the world's most restrained and Burgundian Pinot Noir outside of Burgundy itself, this region can also shape wildly expressive new-world styled Pinot when the vintage conditions are just right. This bottling, crafted by Montinore Estate using Pinot Noir grown in Block 1 of their biodynamic estate vineyard in the Tualatin Hills, is an outstanding example of Oregon Pinot at its most aromatic and delicious. This wine dramatically leaps from the glass with room-filling fragrance anchored by ripe yet tense red fruit, forest tones, baking spice, and gorgeous floral notes. It is characterful and flavor-packed while still remaining wonderfully weightless and dainty, effortlessly revealing levels of ethereal depth and complexity that only Pinot Noir can achieve. Exceptional.