Ken Wright’s Pinot Noirs
Sunday, December 10th, 2006Ken Wright started in Oregon Pinot Noir in 1986 as the winemaker for Panther Creek. In 1993 he established Ken Wright Cellars and began a path of bottling only single vineyard Pinot Noirs.
From 1993 to 1996 he served as winemaker at Domaine Serene while he built and established his own winery.
Ken’s Pinots always emphasize elegance over power; and he achieves this by having very close relationships with his vineyard owners and their workers, and thus yields are very low and concentrated. Ken’s philosophy is that winemaking revolves around working with nature to fully allow the vines to express their quality of fruit and place.
He mentions, “human beings are not responsible for the wine we enjoy, the qualities the grapes posses are inherent, we don’t inject them.” He views his role as to “simply try to have the purest expression the fruit is capable of, brought all the way to the bottle and evident in the glass of wine.” Because of this philosophy, it’s no wonder that Ken feels “pinot noir has a far greater ability than any other variety to express the qualities of place, and that’s magical!” Needless to say we’re excited to have been able to grab a few bottles of the 2005 Ken Wright’s Pinot Noirs. These will be fantastic gifts for the collector for the holidays, as they age well for 8 to 15 years.
Following, a breakdown of the different single vineyards: