Sweeney estate Pinot Noir is our Reserve Pinot Noir. The wine is 100% Pommard clone from three of Cherry Hill’s best blocks. These three blocks are known as the holy grail of the vineyard and the fruit is cropped to 2 tons per acre and picked at 23 brix. Our owner, Mike Sweeney selects several barrels and shares this delicate wine with family and select friends.
Food pairing
Pinot Noir is known as the most food-friendly grape and Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs rank with the best in the world. We recommend entrees of fish, beef, wild game, and pastas.
Producer
The area has been known as Cherry Hill as far back as the local lore runs in this young corner of America. Wild cherries have always grown here, and much of our 150 acres were planted in sweet Royal Anne cherries in the 1960s.
Even earlier the hill was planted to prune trees, which produced succulent fruit. Indeed, the entire Willamette Valley is known for wonderful soil and a long, moderate growing season that is just right for agriculture of all kinds. Today the Willamette Valley is planted to over 6,000 acres of Pinot Noir.
In the early 1990’s this property was purchased by the legendary William Hill, one of the early visionaries of the Napa Valley. Hill’s special facility with hillside sites is famous: he developed Atlas Peak, Diamond Mountain Ranch, Mount Veeder and other distinctive appellations in the Napa region.
That same ‘nose for slopes’ led him to the Eola Hills. The undeveloped rural district had all the right ingredients for world-class pinot noir: the right cool climate, southwestern slopes, elevations between 250-500 feet, and the essential rich, well-drained Jory soils. (In fact, Jory soil is named for nearby Jory Hill in Oregon’s Marion County.)
William Hill acquired a large tract of land here in the Eola Hills early in the 1990s. He divided the property into three separate parcels, all of which are now planted to pinot noir and one of which was purchased in 1998 by our own Mike Sweeney.
William Hill continues to pursue vineyard development in the area with his Premier Pacific project. We at Cherry Hill continue to pursue our own Holy Grail: producing a perfect Pinot Noir from some of the best fruit acreage on the planet.
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