Ken Wright Cellars ‘Canary Hill Vineyard’ Eola-Amity Hills Pinot Noir 2020 Fashion

Blue and black fruit focused. Elegant black cherry, cranberry and blackberry fruits are rounded with earthen notes, red cedar and vanilla bean. Bright acidity melts into a silky finish.

Canary Hill may be one of the older vineyards in the Eola Hills of the Willamette Valley, but its modern history is fairly easy to summarize. Ken Wright liked the vineyard so much that he bought the property outright from Dick and Nancy Daniel in 2006. Twenty-four years before that, in 1982, Nancy and Dick cashed in their Arizona home for the rugged, beautiful property high up in the hills, with a view west towards the Coast Range. They thought that growing grapes might be a good idea, even though “I didn’t know spit about wine,” says Nancy now. The farmers who were their neighbors thought they were nuts for paying $3,500/acre for the 21-acre parcel that was little more than a sheep pasture. How did Canary Hill get its name? “When we arrived there were thousands of little yellow birds on the property,” she recalls. “People told us they were canaries. Well, turns out they were Western Goldfinches.” Too late – they had already named it after canaries, and the name stuck.