Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I loved the 2012 Pinot Noir de Villiers. It's a beautifully complete, balanced and satisfying Pinot Noir that does everything right. Giving up tons of sweet black raspberry and strawberry fruits, spice-box, dried flowers and potpourri characteristics, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and seamless, with a ripe, supple texture that keeps you coming back to the glass. While there's more than enough fruit to keep this enjoyable now, there's some solid tannin and depth in there as well, so it will age.
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Wine Spectator
Aromas of ripe dark berry, limestone, underbrush and gravel make for a compelling drink that’s not shy about tannins, providing grip midpalate and holding on tenaciously. Best from 2016 through 2024.
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.”
At elevations reaching well over 2,000 feet, the Mt. Harlan AVA in the Gabilan Range is an anomaly among its surrounding Central Coast appellations. Recognizing the splendor of the area and its ideal limestone-rich soils, Josh Jensen chose Mt. Harlan as the home of his Calera Wine Company in the 1970s. Awarded his own AVA in 1990, Calera is the only commercial winery in the appellation.