Ayoub Dundee Hills Estate Pinot noir 09

Review:

The elegant...the classy...Ayoub's Estate Pinot noir is quintessential Dundee Hills: refined, silky, seamless. Open up the 2009, try it over several hours, and it's like a jazz quartet trading fours -- pretty red fruit on tenor sax, the melange of spices, orange essence, and maple on piano, structure on bass, and minerality on drums. All have their flourishes, their moments of brilliance, that build in intensity and take you back to the top. While this fantastic Pinot noir is starting to show well now, its complexity is better suited to drinking on day two or three, or cellaring for a few years. - Marcus

2009 Wine Spectator - 93 points - Silky, subtle and expressive, offering a lovely, transparent mouthful of cherry, blackberry and cinnamon flavors that remain aloft and lively through the long finish against well-buffed tannins. Drink now through 2019. - H.S.

The 2009 Pinot Noir Estate is a prototype for the vintage. Light in color but concentrated on the palate, it is an elegant, spicy, stylish wine reminiscent of a Dujac village offering. Drink this friendly effort over the next 5-6 years. - Jay Miller

The elegant...the classy...Ayoub's Estate Pinot noir is quintessential Dundee Hills: refined, silky, seamless. Open up the 2009, try it over several hours, and it's like a jazz quartet trading fours -- pretty red fruit on tenor sax, the melange of spices, orange essence, and maple on piano, structure on bass, and minerality on drums. All have their flourishes, their moments of brilliance, that build in intensity and take you back to the top.

While this fantastic Pinot noir is starting to show well now, its complexity is better suited to drinking on day two or three, or cellaring for a few years. - Marcus

The Ayoub vineyard is located in the heart of the Dundee Hills on red clay volcanic soil that is ideal for producing the finest Oregon Pinot noirs. This particular vintage has aromas of red fruits, dried orange peel, cardamom and sweet oak spice. Only 425 cases were made so buy enough to cellar as this wine is expected to age well for more than fifteen years.

Rex Pickett, author of SIDEWAYS, spoke highly of Ayoub in an article he wrote for TRAVEL + LEISURE magazine in March of 2009. "Ayoub's wines are bold, rustic and some of the finest expressions of the pinot noir grape I've ever tasted."