Winemaker Notes
This bright, lively ruby red Pinot Noir is noted for it's elegance and great intensity, displaying notes of sour cherries, raspberries, plum and hints of toast. On the palate, it is fresh and juicy with perfect amount of acidity. With smooth, long voluptuous tannins, this Pinot pairs best with meats, cheese, and pasta.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a rich and deep expression of pinot, but it’s racy and enthralling. Aromas of ripe, tangy haw fruit, dark raspberries, red plums, anise, licorice and rose petals. Some wet-stone minerality, too. A medium-to full-bodied palate, showing smooth, calculated tannins and really juicy fruit.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
There are some faint oak notes in the 2019 20 Barrels Pinot Noir, which has good ripeness in this dry and warm year. It reveals good freshness and acidity and some oak notes on the finish with faint creaminess.
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Wine Spectator
Offers a nice floral thyme and cedar edge up front that clings to the rich plum berry core, with subtle orange peel and dried hibiscus notes folding in on the finish.
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.”
A region that has become synonymous with some of the best whites of Chile, the Casablanca Valley is full of dozens of bodegas who either grow fruit here or come from outside to source from local growers for their own white wine programs. The valley runs from east to west, which means that its westernmost vineyards receive the most cooling influence from the reliable afternoon sea breezes. The soils also tend to be heavier in clay in the west, whereas the eastern end of the valley is warmer and its soils are predominantly granitic. Sauvignon blanc thrives here, Chardonnay does well and Pinot noir is not uncommon.