The Wine
The Yamhill Cuvée is an ultra-premium Willamette Valley Pinot Noir with consistency vintage to vintage due to the blending of Pinot Noir from each of our main vineyard estates. Named for the county where all of the Domaine Serene estates are found, the inaugural vintage of this blend pre-dates the designation of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA and includes grapes from the Dundee Hills and Eola-Amity AVAs.
Winemaking
The art of blending is the hallmark of Domaine Serene’s winemaking philosophy. The signature silky style and smooth texture of our wines is no accident, and is achieved in the winery through an artful, yet scientific approach that takes winemaking precision to an uncommon level. A meticulous approach to vineyard management utilizes dry-farming and sustainable practices along with carefully managed yields to coax the optimal flavor and balance from the vines. Each block is handled separately for complete terroir transparency. From rigorous hand sorting, through as many as 250 micro-cru fermentations each vintage, to a diverse extended barrel-aging program, our estate vineyard sites are kept separate throughout the winemaking process until they are artfully assembled in the final cuvée before bottling. Each individual barrel is carefully assessed throughout the year, with multiple trial blends developed, to ultimately determine ideal final blends that deliver against the stylistic goals of the wines we create. Once bottled, the rare luxury of space in our winery allows for extended bottle aging of a minimum of 1-2 years for Pinot Noir. This ensures flavors are well integrated and ready to be enjoyed upon release. Our five-level winery is designed to use gravity flow for moving wine from one stage of the winemaking process to the next, a time-tested approach for transferring wine gently to help preserve its pure terroir expression.
Tasting notes
Extremely expressive, the 2018 Yamhill Cuvée Pinot Noir offers an alluring nose rich with aromas of cocoa and clove. The palate is bursting with an intense patchwork of marionberry, black currant, and blueberry flavors. Polished and plush, its seamlessly integrated and silky tannins lead to a long, lingering finish. An exceptionally appealing wine, its complexity leaves you thirsty for more.
The Estate
Grace and Ken Evenstad first arrived and settled in the Dundee Hills in the Willamette Valley in 1989. At that time, the couple had spent over 20 years together in Minnesota building a successful business, a loving family, and a deep appreciation for the wines of Burgundy.  The Evenstads had faith in Oregon early on, before there was a national market for domestic Pinot Noir. When the time came to pursue their longtime dream of growing and producing world-class Pinot Noir, they invested in a 42-acre hilltop estate that had just been logged in the beautiful Dundee Hills of Oregon. With the support of their family - and to the surprise of many of their friends in Minnesota – the Evenstads established Domaine Serene, effectively creating Oregon’s luxury wine industry. They named the winery after their daughter, Serene, and their first vineyard on the estate was named after their son, Mark Bradford Evenstad.
Today, Domaine Serene produces wines from six individual vineyard estates, planted exclusively to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Each estate offers a diversity of soils, clones, rootstocks, microclimates, slopes and elevations that add distinguishing complexity and elegance to the wines.