Winemaker Notes
The Edna Valley growing region offers an incredible opportunity to produce a variety of Pinot Noir bottlings, based on the vineyard, clone soil, and barrel selections. Each of these factors influences flavor, intensity, and aroma. The 2015 Classic Pinot Noir is a blend of fruit from Claiborne & Churchill's estate vineyards that shows off Pinot Noir's signature characteristics. In the glass, it boasts a lovely ruby color. An abundance of fresh-picked berry aromas, tart cherry and forest floor flavors lead the way to accents of allspice, cranberry, and green tea, followed by a long, lean finish. Due to its delicate nature and mouth-watering acidity, we find this wine does an incredible job of fulfilling its mission as a dinner wine.
Pair with Margherita pizza, cioppino or wild mushroom risotto.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: My notes on the Claiborne & Churchill wines have always revolved around their white wines, but the 2015 Estate Pinot Noir is now bringing me into taking a closer look at their reds. TASTING NOTES: This wine a bright and accurate with excellent red and black fruit aromas and flavors. Its bright cranberry and strawberry notes, with just an accent of darker fruits, makes it a beautiful choice with lightly grilled salmon fillets. (Tasted: May 21, 2018, 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.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.