Winemaker Notes
Our 2011 Monterey Pinot Noir shows a bright, ruby red color with excellent clarity. In the nose we find beautiful aromas of ripe, red cherries and boysenberries. On the palate, flavors of bright ripe fruits along with subtle spicy notes fill the mouth and linger on a long, crisp finish. We feel this wine is an excellent match with a wide variety of dishes.
At Bernardus, all our Pinot Noir grapes are hand picked block by block according to ripeness levels, hand sorted and fermented in small batches using specially selected yeasts. Each fermenter is pumped over twice daily in order to maximize extraction of flavor and structure.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A great Pinot Noir to lead off with, the 2011 Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands offers up upfront, voluptuous and supple aromas and flavors of bright cherries, forest floor and earth. This medium-bodied, textured effort is downright delicious and is hard to resist. Drink now-2017.
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 geographic and climatic paradise for grape vines, Monterey is a part of the greater Central Coast AVA and contains within it five smaller sub-appellations, including Arroyo Seco, San Lucas, San Bernabe, Hames Valley and the famous Santa Lucia Highlands. The climate is relatively warm but tempered by cool, coastal winds, allowing the regions in Monterey County an exceptionally long growing season. Bud break often happens two weeks sooner and harvest tends to be two weeks later compared to other surrounding regions.
Monterey’s coastal side, where the cooling ocean fog allows grapes to develop a perfect sugar-acid balance, excels in the production of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling. Warmer, inland subzones are home to fleshy, concentrated and full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel.
Chardonnay, covering about 40% of vineyard acreage, is the most widely planted grape in all of Monterey County.