From the winery -

The key words for this wine are balance and grace. There is a sensuality to this wine that really brings unique excitement to one’s highest calling for the grape, Pinot Noir. Look for rose petal powered red fruit of cherry and raspberry aromas. This is the “feminine” power that only Pinot Noir can capture in a wine glass. The mouth-feel is seductive and creamy textured with red fruit, spice, and violet floral perfumed flavors. Rich, long, and enticing this Pinot Noir keeps on giving. The wine begs one to enjoy another glass leaving you feeling light and joyful.

Previous Vintage Tasting Notes

Wine Spectator gave the 2002 vintage of this wine 92 points FOR THE SCREWCAP VERSION! The cork finished version received 91 points.

Here's what they said: "Ripe and generous, with distinctive violet and rose petal overtones to the cherry and spice flavors, lingering with fine texture. Needs time to settle in. Twenty percent of the wine will be bottled under screw cap. The wine bottled under screw cap scored 92 points. Best from 2007 through 2012." -H.S.

In most of the country, stores carry the Argyle 02 Reserve sealed with a cork. According to Argyle, they are gradually changing their reserve wines to screpcaps, starting here in Oregon! So order today and try the higher rated screwcap version of this lovely Pinot noir.

Winemaker Tasting Notes:

"This is the darkest colored, ripest flavored Reserve ever from Argyle! Think of all the attributes of past Argyle Reserve and amplify it at least twice. If you've visited Argyle, you'll see and smell that we are into gardening. Take the color and scent of a Guinee rose, add fruit aromas of black cherry, and marion berry with spice aromas of turned earth and dark cocoa and you just begin to approach the complexity of this wine."

This is a massive wine from a massively warm vintage. The liquid even looks more viscous than wine when poured into a glass! The aroma is deep toned and concentrated. Look for plum jam, black cherry extract, a hint of cedar smoke, and dark chocolate-mint spices. The flavor is mouth-filling and packed with plum sauce-black cherry stuffed with chocolate. See if you can find the plum pudding-alder wood smoke character. The texture is super-juicy all the way through to a very long lasting sweetness with sanded tannin memory.

Production Notes The 2003 vintage could be described as a bit of Ying and a bit of Yang leading to a lot of Whoopee! The Ying came in the form of a September week of wet weather. Some berry splitting and a couple of potential mold issues would have multiplied our grief if another week of wet ensued. Then Yang kicked in with a vengeance in the form of a very hot, dry east wind during the week of 22nd September. 95F on September 27th is unprecedented in our cool climate region! Our fears of splitting and mold were replaced by raisining and shriveling! The solution was to start up our irrigation system in the best vineyard blocks replacing evaporated berry and vine moisture, allowing us to wait out the heat. Thus, fruit flavor and balance was maintained, producing wines of incredible power and ripeness!