Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Damp forest floor, dark berries andcampfire aromas kick off the nose of this twist-top bottling that’s always a solid Pinot Noir for a fair price. The palate is rich with earthy flavors of juniper and turned loam, and there is a rich mulberry component in the background leading into the acid-washed finish.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: While I generally favor more red-fruited Pinot Noirs, I certainly found the 2016 Baileyana Firepeak to be a first-class effort. TASTING NOTES: This wine is showy, firm, and well-built. Its aromas of black fruit, oak, and dried herbs should pair it well with grilled rosemary-infused lamb chops. (Tasted: May 15, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.