Mansfield-Dunne Pinot Noir 2016

Mansfield-Dunne Wines is the culmination of a 10 year effort of John and Lynn Peterson to secure land in the Santa Lucia Highlands with the goal to grow premium pinot noir and chardonnay grapes and produce wine from those grapes. They have long been pinot noir and chardonnay lovers and (John at least) long harbored the goal of developing a vineyard and label focused on these varietals. After discovering the Santa Lucia Highlands area in 2001 and meeting Ed Kurtzman and a couple of the local growers, they were impressed with the potential of the appellation and quickly concluded this was the place to focus their dream project. After years of searching, they secured an undeveloped property at the base of the mountains up Big Bench Road in 2009. In 2010 they secured what is now the Peterson Vineyard alongside River Road, which was already planted to 8.8 acres of pinot noir. They planted an acre of chardonnay there in 2011 and produced a very limited quantity of their first chardonnay in 2015. As friends of Ed Kurtzman and big fans of his wines, the Petersons were very happy that he was willing to join them in this journey. Ed is extremely familiar with pinot noir and chardonnay from the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, and they knew their grapes would be in the best of hands. After 4 years of drilling water wells and vineyard planing, the Petersons finally began the development of their second property in the Santa Lucia Highlands in 2014. This property is at higher elevation of 1100-1300 feet and gives them the opportunity to work with a different microclimate within the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation. So far they have planted 30.3 more acres of pinot noir, 7.9 more acres of chardonnay and a tiny bit each of syrah and viognier. They experienced their first small production of pinot noir, chardonnay, and syrah from the new vineyard in 2016 and have named the new vineyard Cortada Alta.