Review

Wine Spectator: Smooth and round, with a lovely polished feel to the dark berry, cherry, licorice and spice flavors, flowing easily over finely tuned tannins, persisting expressively. Drink now through 2016. 9,000 cases made. -HS Robert Parker: The 2006 Evenstad Reserve is a blend of over 70 lots. Medium ruby-colored, it offers notes of cedar, cinnamon, clove, cassis, and raspberry. This is followed by a medium- to full-bodied wine with layers of complex red fruits, enough structure to evolve for 3-4 years, excellent integration of oak, tannin, and acidity, and a lengthy finish. Drink it from 2010 to 2018. Domaine Serene has turned out its most successful set of Pinot Noirs in several vintages.

Wine maker notes

a ripe, hedonistic vintage, this wine offers consistency with a host of late summer rubus fruits (think boysen and olallie berries) balanced with a heady, floral perfume of violet and lavender and a touch of sweet smoke. The palate is a journey from luscious peach and wild strawberry with vanilla cola, hints of dark chocolate and tar, and finishes with lifted raspberry flavors that linger and mingle back to recall the depth of initial aromas. Supple tannins frame this wine with gracefully equipoised structure. Aged 15 months in French oak barrels of which 48% were new. The Evenstad Reserve, our flagship wine, is our finest barrel selection of the vintage. Estate vineyards produce this complex wine of concentration and true varietal character, each and every year. Our skillfully managed vineyards provide a diverse range of elevation, slope, soil composition, and clones, with each site contributing its unique character to the Evenstad Reserve. Through gentle handling, extended barrel aging and artful blending, this exquisite Pinot Noir is created.