$41.99 on 6+ bottles (use code: 6saves2)

93 pts Vinous
Drinking Window: 2025 - 2031
From: Oregon 2022: The Rollercoaster Vintage (Aug 2024) The 2022 Pinot Noir Polk County Cuvée is dusty and understated, opening with a pretty mix of dried roses, licorice and ground cloves. This is a juicy and energetic effort, with ripe red berry fruits lifted by zesty acidity as violet inner florals amass toward the close. A web of fine-grained tannins adds youthful poise as the 2022 finishes long and gently structured, leaving a tart raspberry concentration to fade slowly. - By Eric Guido on May 2024

The 2022s from Will Hamilton at Violin show just how special this vintage can be from the right sources and in the right hands. In this case, fruit sourced from vineyards that avoided any damage from the spring frost. Together with lower yields and picking earlier for freshness, 2022 resulted in a savory set of well-structured and complex wines. Hamilton didn’t have to contend with secondary buds due to frost, or the issue of overabundance that plagued some wineries; he had all of his fruit in before the threat of rain during harvest. This was a truly satisfying portfolio to taste through. The use of new oak is minimal. Balance and purity are front and center, while alcohol levels hover in the 12.5-13% range for Chardonnay and the low 13% range for Pinot Noir. “Wine should be delicious, first and foremost. I want to find purity, and I’m not a fan of new oak,” Hamilton explains. He points out that “Two thousand twenty-two wasn’t a frost year for us. It was just a really late vintage. Late budding, late flowering and late harvest.” Personally, I can’t recommend Violin highly enough. The single-vineyard wines are fantastic, but don’t pass up the chance to taste the Polk County Cuvée, a Pinot Noir that blends fruit from Temperance Hill, Witness Tree, Justice and Sojeau Vineyards with vines that average 25 years old.  - By Eric Guido on May 2024, Vinous Media

Our tasting note:
Med/med+ ruby. The nose is med+, with savory notes to the red fruits, pencil lead, reductive, spice.  Very complex, very much the most "Burgundian" wine.  The palate is med body, med and fine grain silky tannins, perfectly integrated acidity, the med+ palate is persistent, long and savory, fruity and spicy.

Having skipped this bottling in 2020, our ’22 selection marks our fifth example from the Southern Eola-Amity Hills and includes the same four sites as in 2021.  The high blocks from Witness Tree form the base (37%), with equal parts of Temperance Hill and Sojeau Vineyards (both 25%), with the balance from the West side of Justice Vineyard (13%).  Small percentages of whole cluster in all but Justice Vineyard, the respective sites were aged separately for nearly fifteen months in barrel before assemblage at the very end of January, ensuring nearly a month in stainless steel to come together before bottling on February 20th.

Maybe our most “classic” grey label yet; a wound up, tense, and reductive/flinty earthiness providing the initial punch before revealing strong floral and woodsy aromas, eventually showing the very red and deep fruit characters as it opens.  A briny attack, showing no extra weight or fat, leading to unctuous ripe strawberry fruit and spices, with ample salinity across the palate.  Incredibly deft with more air, showing the trademark focus and complex expression this bottling has offered over the years.  Always on the funkier side of the spectrum, the wild and coiled power in this blend works toward a more distinctive tone, creating the delicious balance between primary, vibrant fruit and pure, soulful savoriness.

• 395 cases and 18 magnums produced
• 13.0% alcohol