Calera Reed Vineyard Pinot Noir 2016
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Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Calera Reed Vineyard Pinot Noir is an aromatically complex wine, with sophisticated notes of rhubarb, red raspberry, strawberry, holiday spice, white pepper and wild game. The lovely fruit is echoed on the soft, flowing palate, with seamless tannins adding polish and length to a compelling finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Natural and effortless, the Calera 2016s are among the most elegant California pinot noirs we’ve tasted, the summation of place and subtle but assertive winemaking. None more so than Reed Vineyard, the smallest and oldest of the pinot noir vineyards Josh Jensen planted on Mt. Harlan. (This is the last vintage Jensen made before selling Calera to Duckhorn.) It leads with a quiet but spicy whole-cluster thrust of lavender and bergamot, leafy and savory, backed up by a coniferous wood spice from French oak barrels, about 30 percent new. For all the savor, it tastes like the cool radiant sunshine of California at high elevation. The flavors feel sleek and quiet, unhurried and poised.
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Wine Enthusiast
Juniper berry, bay leaf and mossy forest-floor elements join with dense cranberry fruit on the nose of this bottling from a vineyard 2,200 feet above the Salinas Valley. The palate pops with more of those herbal elements, including tarragon and eucalyptus, as well as cranberry and sandalwood.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Calera Reed Pinot Noir presents a wine of pure beauty. TASTING NOTES: This wine is lively, elegant, and authentic. Enjoy its stylish aromas and flavors of strawberries, blueberries, and a light touch of oak with grilled lamb chops. (Tasted: April 20, 2019, San Francisco, CA USA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aged 17 months in 30% new French oak, the 2016 Pinot Noir Reed Vineyard is pale to medium ruby in the glass. The nose gives up dried rose petals, orange peel, warm wild blackberries, cured meats and a peppery touch with notes of potpourri, earth and amaro. Light to medium-bodied, it offers nuanced fruit and a sturdy, grainy frame, finishing long, lifted and juicy.
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In 1975, legendary vintner and American wine pioneer Josh Jensen founded Calera (Spanish for “lime kiln”) high in the remote Gavilan Mountains of California’s windswept Central Coast. There, in Mt. Harlan’s low-yielding, limestone-rich soils and cool, arid climate, he began planting what would ultimately become six small estate vineyards. Today, these vineyards are recognized as some of the New World’s most revered Pinot Noir sites.
Calera is a vision, and Calera’s wines truly express the sense of place. Rather than follow the recommended path, Josh Jensen became a pioneer in American Pinot Noir. Taking his cue from the great domaines of Burgundy, which have grown grapes in limestone soil for centuries, he set out in search of the perfect spot in California to create wines unique to the world but in the style of the greatest wines of France. Site selection was vital as he ventured off the grid to plant on the site of an old limekiln in the Gavilan Mountains of California's Central Coast.
Under the stewardship of Winemaker Mike Waller, each vineyard is renowned for producing singular wines of uncommon purity, elegance and aging potential. In addition to its beloved single-vineyard wines, Calera partners with some of the top vineyards on California’s majestic Central Coast to make Calera’s beautiful Central Coast wines, including a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
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.”
At elevations reaching well over 2,000 feet, the Mt. Harlan AVA in the Gabilan Range is an anomaly among its surrounding Central Coast appellations. Recognizing the splendor of the area and its ideal limestone-rich soils, Josh Jensen chose Mt. Harlan as the home of his Calera Wine Company in the 1970s. Awarded his own AVA in 1990, Calera is the only commercial winery in the appellation.