Great Northwest Wine’s team of reviewers — led by President and CEO Eric Degerman — recently sampled and posted their review of our now sold-out 2020 Candide Zenith Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir.
Degerman has been writing about Pacific Northwest wines (including Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Idaho) for more than 35 years. He also publishes a print magazine under the Great Northwest Wine masthead. He and his colleagues have reviewed many of our wines over the years, most recently the 2020 Jupiter Estate Pinot Noir, which they rated “Outstanding!”
Here’s the Great Northwest Wine review of our 2020 Candide release:
Chehalem Mountains grower/winemaker David Specter pays tribute to an operetta by the late Leonard Bernstein with this part of the Bells Up program. Typically, Candide is a Chehalem Mountains project for Specter, but not from the wildfire-plagued 2020 vintage.
Instead, he got his hands on a ton of Wädenswil clone Pinot Noir from acclaimed Zenith Vineyard — a site near Salem that benefits from coastal breezes. This bottling is Burgundian with its persistent earthy and saddle leather profile that brings along dark purple fruit akin to Bing cherry and Marionberry, barrel spice, caramel and dried centella leaves.
The tannin management is remarkable, making for an impressively balanced frame that shows off the former corporate tax attorney’s talent as a winemaker. Rating: 90 points — Excellent
