McKinlay Vineyards Pinot Noir Willamette Valley, 2022

Winemaker Matt Kinne’s family has been farming in Oregon since the early 1900’s. His great-grandfather and McKinlay Vineyard’s namesake, Reverend George Angus McKinlay, was a minister who dry-farmed fruit and nut trees in the Willamette Valley. 100 years later, Matt has established a cult following of deeply loyal fans. McKinlay Vineyards was founded in 1987 and has focused exclusively on Pinot Noir since 1995.

Regularly noted for his elegant, Burgundian style, Matt is a firm believer in making his wines in the vineyard. His vines are dry farmed in well drained, volcanic soil and the shoots are trained upward, for optimal sun exposure and ventilation. Only one cluster is allowed to form on each shoot. Unsurprisingly, production is extremely low, with a focus rather on depth and concentration of flavor.

Matt believes in then letting the fruit speak for itself, exhorting Pinot Noir’s ability to “Express itself in such a confident and understated form. Pinot Noir at its finest is red, not black; freshly fragrant; richly and brightly flavored with complexity and length.”

The wines he produces are a beautiful expression of this ideal. They are fermented with native yeasts, lightly aged in no more than 25% new oak and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Or as Matt would put it: “The winemaker’s hand is light to balance, not mute these attributes and promote the purest possible expression a vineyard has to offer.”