Winemaker Notes
This site is always a balancing act between fruit, savory, and earth notes. Layered with bing cherry, red delicious apple, cranberry, and orange peel coupled with black tea, bouquet garni, and more earthy notes of wet terracotta and iron. Exquisitely balanced with depth, power, and lively acidity. Aged for 16 months on fine lees in 100% French Oak, 30% new.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The pale to medium ruby-purple colored 2016 Pinot Noir la Encantada Vineyard gives up pretty kirsch, smoked cranberries, dried black tea leaves, underbrush and amaro with touches of tree bark, burnt citrus peel, dried flowers and spices. The light to medium-bodied palate is elegant and silky with bright, bitters-laced fruits, grainy tannins and juicy freshness to lift the long finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Another Sta. Rita Hills single vineyard release, the 2016 Pinot Noir La Encantada Vineyard was all destemmed and spent 18 months in 30% new French oak. Medium ruby/plum-colored, it offers lots of savory red plum, orange peel, spice, dried herbs, and earthy aromas and flavors. Medium-bodied, nicely balanced, and lifted, with chewy tannins, give it a year and enjoy over the following 4-5 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Concentrated black cherry and dark berries meet with a floral lift, earthy soil and charred wood aromas on the nose of this single-vineyard expression. The palate is taut with grippy red-cherry and sagebrush flavors, washed in grippy texture and fresh acidity
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.”
A superior source of California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is the coolest, westernmost sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley appellation within Santa Barbara County. This relatively new AVA is unquestionably one to keep an eye on.
The climate of Sta. Rita Hills is a natural match for Chardonnay and Pinot noir, thanks to the crisp ocean breezes and well-drained, limestone-rich calcareous soil. Here, grapes ripen just enough, while retaining brisk acidity and harmonious balance.