Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a site in the Sta. Rita Hills, the 2016 Pinot Noir Drum Canyon Vineyard saw the standard 75% destemming and 10 months in 25% new French oak. It's similarly ruby/purple-hued and offers a feminine perfume of sweet strawberry and raspberry fruits intermixed with spring flowers, underbrush, and subtly salty, marine-like nuances. Rounded, supple, and elegant on the palate, it's already drinking beautifully yet is going to keep for at least 7-8 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
This bottling from a vineyard in the heart of the Sta. Rita Hills begins with aromas of earthy soils, dried herbs and bright Bing cherries. The palate's dark red, almost boysenberry fruit tones are both crisp and ripe, wrapped in a rocky, earthy tension that's mouthfilling and bright, finishing on a hint of French toast.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Pinot Noir Drum Canyon Vineyard, made with 25% whole cluster and aged 16 months in 35% new French oak, is pale to medium ruby and youthfully reticent, very slowly revealing Bing cherries, cranberry, woodsmoke, earth, moss-covered bark, underbrush and wild blackberries. Medium-bodied, it offers intense flavor layers with lots of earthy nuance, a sturdy frame of grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long.
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.