2021 Kelley Fox Carter Vineyard Pinot Noir, Oregon

From 40-year-old self-rooted vines that are organically farmed, the 2021 Pinot Noir Carter Vineyard is a ripe ruby hue and offers notes of grenadine, candied roses, and cinnamon. Its tannins are ripe and fine, and it fills the palate with ripe red fruit, apricot, and notes of crushed stone along with mouthwatering salinity.

98 points jebdunnuck.com

Kelley Fox is one of Oregon’s most quietly revered Pinot Noir producers, working from a small cellar in Dundee and sourcing fruit from historic vineyards across the Willamette Valley. After years working alongside David Lett at The Eyrie Vineyards, she established her own label with a philosophy grounded in transparency, delicacy and vineyard expression. Carter Vineyard sits in the Eola Amity Hills, planted in the early 1980s on volcanic basalt soils shaped by the cooling Van Duzer Corridor winds. The site produces Pinot of aromatic lift and finely etched structure.

Farming at Carter is meticulous, with an emphasis on vine balance and moderate yields. In the cellar, Kelley Fox works with minimal intervention, gentle extraction and restrained use of oak, allowing the vineyard’s character to remain front and centre. The wines are built on finesse rather than weight, capturing perfume and tension over power.

Light ruby in colour, the aromas are beautifully lifted, opening with red cherry, cranberry and wild strawberry layered with rose petal, blood orange and subtle forest floor. The palate is medium bodied and silky, with bright red fruit wrapped in fine, powdery tannins and vibrant acidity. Flavours unfold with grace, finishing long, savoury and mineral driven.

It pairs beautifully with duck, roasted poultry, mushroom dishes and delicate game. Already captivating in its youth for its perfume and purity, it will cellar confidently for twelve to fifteen years, developing earthy and truffle complexity.

This is Eola Amity Hills Pinot at its most refined, fragrant, transparent and profoundly site expressive.