Kutch Wines Falstaff Vineyard Pinot Noir 2012
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It has been a challenge for the winery to locate and secure such sites, causing its production to grow at a slow but steady pace. Once the fruit is harvested, it is handled with the utmost care, sorted meticulously and moved only by gravity. Kutch takes great care not to over-manipulate wines in the callar -- aiming to provide the purest expression of Pinot Noir from a particular place and time. This minimal interventionalist style of wine-making is reflected in the winery's use of indigenous yeast and its minimal acid adjustments -- with the absence of any color enhancing agents.
All punch-downs are literally done by the bare hand or by feet. Upon completion of fermentation, the wine is gravity flowed into French oak barrels, where it remains unmoved while aging sur lie (on the fine lees). The wines are never racked until the winemaker is ready to bottle, nearly 16 months after harvest. Kutch wines express all of the natural greatness of their vineyard origins.
The Sonoma Coast AVA is large in area but, not counting overlapping regions like Russian River Valley, only has a few thousand acres of grapevines—and it’s no wonder. Much of the region is rugged and not easily accessible. Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean’s fog and cool breezes limits the varieties that can be cultivated, but it proves to be an ideal environment for high quality Pinot Noir.
Since fog is a frequent fact of life here, as are heavy marine layers that sometimes bring rain, the best vineyards are wisely planted above the fog line, on picturesque ridges that capture enough sun to provide even ripening. That, with the overnight drop in temperature that reliably preserves acidity, results in fine expressions of Pinot Noir that often receive tremendous critic and consumer praise alike, and are often in high demand.