Calera Mills Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The transparent ruby-colored 2010 Pinot Noir Mills Vineyard has considerable structure and depth hiding under all of its texture and richness. Offering up notions of sweet cherries, strawberry, underbrush, crushed flowers and chalky minerality, it has a massive mid-palate, incredible purity and a seamless, elegant overall profile. It, too, will have 10-12 years or more of prime drinking. Drink now-2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is delicious now for its raspberry and cherry sweetness, accented with smoky oak and brightened by crisp acidity. It shows the elegance that Calera Pinots are known for. It’s complex enough to offer lots of pleasure, but you may want to age it for 6–8 years to let it mellow.
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Wine Spectator
Firm, dark and intense, well-centered on wild berry, savory herb, tea and spice, this comes together on the vibrant, persistent finish. Best from 2014 through 2022.
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In 1975, legendary vintner and American wine pioneer Josh Jensen founded Calera (Spanish for “lime kiln”) high in the remote Gavilan Mountains of California’s windswept Central Coast. There, in Mt. Harlan’s low-yielding, limestone-rich soils and cool, arid climate, he began planting what would ultimately become six small estate vineyards. Today, these vineyards are recognized as some of the New World’s most revered Pinot Noir sites.
Calera is a vision, and Calera’s wines truly express the sense of place. Rather than follow the recommended path, Josh Jensen became a pioneer in American Pinot Noir. Taking his cue from the great domaines of Burgundy, which have grown grapes in limestone soil for centuries, he set out in search of the perfect spot in California to create wines unique to the world but in the style of the greatest wines of France. Site selection was vital as he ventured off the grid to plant on the site of an old limekiln in the Gavilan Mountains of California's Central Coast.
Under the stewardship of Winemaker Mike Waller, each vineyard is renowned for producing singular wines of uncommon purity, elegance and aging potential. In addition to its beloved single-vineyard wines, Calera partners with some of the top vineyards on California’s majestic Central Coast to make Calera’s beautiful Central Coast wines, including a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
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.