Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Pinot Noir Mills Vineyard is slightly deeper colored (it's still translucent) and offers a gorgeous nose of ripe redcurrants, cherries, spring flowers, sappy forest floor, and ample spice nuances. With medium to full body, beautiful depth of fruit, and a seamless texture, it's another stunning Pinot Noir from this team that I'd be happy to have in the cellar.
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Tasting Panel
Pale to medium ruby, the 2017 Pinot Noir Mills Vineyard, aged 17 months in 30% new French oak, has a floral-laced nose of cranberries, fresh raspberries, orange peel, tea leaves, potpourri and saline with an earthy undercurrent. Light to medium-bodied, it's bright, fresh and lifted with a finely grainy frame and juicy acidity on the finish.The fruit for this wine came from vines planted on their own root stock in 1984 in the Gabilan Mountains, 25 miles east of Monterey Bay. Deep notes of black cherry and black tea resonate on the nose and palate, demonstrating an earthy character. Sandalwood and sweet tobacco join in at the mid-palate with an onpoint acid structure, and on the finish, tart pomegranate is seasoned with white pepper and mushroom.
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Wine & Spirits
The relatively large Mills parcel was planted in 1984 on a south-southeast-facing slope. This vintage is dusty and spicy, showing earthy forest floor and a hint of oak. It centers on a lush core of dark-cherry fruit, silky and voluptuous, with juicy ripeness that makes it mouthwatering. This will sustain its freshness while gaining complexity over the next decade.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dried strawberry aromas meet with light leather, dried mud, seasoning salt and wild herbs on the nose of this bottling. There is a firm tension to the sip, where tart cranberry flavors soak into the meatier, forest-floor aspects
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.