Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
A stunning range of black sage, fresh bay leaf, hearty mulberry, exotic cinnamon, raw beef and baking spice converge for a rugged yet pretty nose on this bottling from a vineyard planted in 1975. Elderberry and elderflower show on the sip, as do beet juice, dried ginger, crushed rocks, potting soils and a concentrated potpourri of purple flowers.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From an accountant crushing yield of 1.12 tons per acre, the 2013 Pinot Noir Jensen Vineyard was aged 17 months in 30% new French oak. It offers a beautiful array of sappy flowers, forest floor and darker raspberry and cherry fruits to go with a medium to full-bodied, seamless, silky style on the palate that continues to flesh out and gain richness with time in the glass. Like all of Josh's wines, it's impeccably balanced and has first rate purity of fruit, ripe tannin structure and a great finish. It certainly offers incredible pleasure today, yet will be even better with short term cellaring and will have 15 years of overall longevity.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2013 Calera Jensen Vineyard Pinot Noir is remarkable. The wine's purity begins with red fruits and minerals in the aroma and settles onto a palate showing impeccable balance and smoothness. The crisp and lively finish indicates that it will require a decade in the cellar before it is at its best. (Tasted: November 18, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
-
Wine Spectator
Dense, with plum, blackberry and blueberry flavors, this firmly tannic version shows a sense of elegance and suppleness. Stylish and revealing new flavor nuances. Drink now through 2023.
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.