Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills is another complex, supple, complex wine from Bonaccorsi. Spice cherries, forest floor, hints of salty sea breeze and iodine notes all flow to a medium-bodied, silky, beautifully textured wine that has bright yet integrated acidity, no hard edges, and a great finish. As with all the wines here, it's going to benefit from a year or two (or more) in bottle and keep for over a decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale ruby-garnet, the 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills has a nose of violet and lilac with fresh tobacco, blueberries, warm red cherries, strawberry and rhubarb with nuances of earth and tree bark—wonderful layers! Light to medium-bodied, it's silky and perfumed in the mouth with soft, fine-grained tannins and great freshness, finishing long and layered.
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 superior source of California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is the coolest, westernmost sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley appellation within Santa Barbara County. This relatively new AVA is unquestionably one to keep an eye on.
The climate of Sta. Rita Hills is a natural match for Chardonnay and Pinot noir, thanks to the crisp ocean breezes and well-drained, limestone-rich calcareous soil. Here, grapes ripen just enough, while retaining brisk acidity and harmonious balance.