Elk Cove Vineyards Clay Court Pinot Noir 2024 Red Wine

Elk Cove Vineyards Clay Court Pinot Noir 2024 

Chehalem Mountains AVA, Willamette Valley, OR

750 ml

Elk Cove has consistently been one of our favorite wineries in Oregon. Clay Court vineyard is named for the tennis court in the owners' backyard, around which the vineyard grows. It's a fruit-forward, luscious Pinot, with a myriad of flavors dancing around the glass! A fan favorite every vintage. - Wine Factor

FROM THE WINERY

The 2024 vintage here in the Willamette Valley was a winemaker’s dream: well-paced with idyllic conditions for cool climate vineyards. The growing season started and ended cool and mild, with short heat-spikes in mid- summer. Winter and spring were wetter than average, giving the vines a head start underground. Budbreak in mid-April was followed by steady growth into June, when rains during bloom naturally lowered yields for us, lessening the need for thinning fruit. July and August were punctuated by several heat-spikes. Thankfully, the hottest temperatures occurred during the green phase of fruit maturation, while clusters are sunburn resistant. Toward the end of the growing season, a late August drizzle left our vines clean and refreshed, ripening a moderate quantity of very beautiful fruit. We looked forward to harvest with keen anticipation.

The 2024 harvest had a slower pace than typical. With the exception of some early sparkling wine picks, all fruit came in over the course of 40 days. We brought in our first Pinot the second week of September and harvest continued at a steady beat, allowing us to give each vineyard block and fermentation our optimal attention. After a very mild October with plenty of sunshine and wonderful diurnal swings in temperature, the first cold snap of November brought so much cold air, the cellar required extra heating during our white wine fermentations. The timing of harvest was close to our historic average, but within a longer window contributing to great hang-time.

Expect concentrated, fruit-forward wines with great complexity. We are hopeful that the 2024 will come to be considered a classic Willamette Valley vintage.

VINEYARD:

Clay Court sits atop a picturesque hillside in the Parrett Mountain zone of the Chehalem Mountains AVA. This 15 acre all-Pinot-Noir vineyard was planted in 2001 with the classic Pommard and modern Dijon 115 and 777 clones of Pinot Noir. Clay Court was purchased by Elk Cove in 2009 and is the home of founders Joe and Pat Campbell – and their beloved tennis court! With gentle east-facing slopes, dark red Jory clay soils, and a proven track-record for producing high-quality Pinot Noirs, Clay Court Vineyard was immediately a great addition to Elk Cove’s estate vineyards.

WINEMAKING:

All of Elk Cove’s delicate Pinot Noir fruit undergoes the same gentle handling through our gravity flow system. This allows us to achieve the elegance, texture and luscious quality that are the hallmarks of exquisite Pinot Noir. Clay Court Pinot Noir fruit is fermented in small, temperature controlled steel tanks, hand punched down twice daily then aged for ten months in French oak. Our winemaking team then carefully blends the barrels most representative of the spicy flavors and concentrated red cherry fruit that characterizes this vineyard.

VITICULTURE & ENOLOGY:

Vine Age: 23 years

Harvest Sugars: 24 brix

Vatting: Fermentation in small open top steel fermentors. 10 months in 62% new French oak.

Alc: 13.5 v/v

pH: 3.52

TA: 5.3

Cases Produced: 765

Date Bottled: August 2025