Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
-
Vinous
The 2018 Pinot Noir de Villiers Vineyard shows the natural intensity of the year in its powerful, broad personality. Dark blue/purplish fruit, gravel, incense, tobacco and mocha all flesh out in a Pinot that marries textural richness with plenty of grip and vertical lift.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Subdued and smooth lines of black cherry and boysenberry are mixed with cocoa and light herb on the nose of this bottling. Roasted berry and slight game flavors show on the palate, which is wrapped in a rich mouthfeel.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Calera De Villiers Vineyard Pinot Noir is well-built and intense on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine excels with aromas and flavors of black fruits, notes of sandalwood, and hints of oak. Pair it with pan-fried lamb chops. (Tasted: June 22, 2021, 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.”
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.