Elke Blue Diamond Donnelly Creek Pinot Noir 2010
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The Blue Diamond is a wine made for aging, which is why we usually wait an additional year after bottling before releasing it. Although it drinks well now, it will also benefit from five to ten years in your cellar.
In 1997, Elke began to save some of their favorite Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay grapes for their own wines. They produce limited quantities of each wine, using traditional, handcrafted winemaking at the winery in Anderson Valley. This type of winemaking allows Elke's wines to be "wines of a place," meaning that they will speak to you of where the grapes were grown, and the conditions under which they grew.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Reaching up California's coastline and into its valleys north of San Francisco, the North Coast AVA includes six counties: Marin, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake. While Napa and Sonoma enjoy most of the glory, the rest produce no shortage of quality wines in an intriguing and diverse range of styles.
Climbing up the state's rugged coastline, the chilly Marin County, just above the City and most of Sonoma County, as well as Mendocino County on the far north end of the North Coast successfully grow cool-climate varieties like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and in some spots, Riesling. Inland Lake County, on the other hand, is considerably warmer, and Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc produce some impressive wines with affordable price tags.