Winemaker Notes
The 2022 Radian Pinot Noir is complex, with a dark red fruit profile (some black cherries and red plums, with raspberry liqueur, pomegranate), along with spices, and herbs (a distinct chaparral note) and the usual saline character from the ocean. The wine is graceful due to citrus and mineral laced acidity. It is a worthy successor to the 2021.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Along with the Duvarita bottling, the 2022 Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard is a centerpiece in the Dragonette roster. It leads with a distinctly savory, wild and intensely focused nose that walks the line between angularity and harshness incredibly well. The palate is similarly laser-like and driving, exuding an attractive silkiness buttressed by an unwaveringly tensile rudder that runs through the finish. It concludes with the inward, compacted, tannin profile that continuously swells and morphs with time in the glass, never losing its palpable tension.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine starts delicately and then quickly intensifies into deliciously arrayed aromas of raspberry, sour cherry, toasted sagebrush and cracked pepper. The palate pulls a similar trick, as creamy tannins ease into waves of flavors, from red fruit to cinnamon, mace, turned earth and wild herb.
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James Suckling
This is a nicely dry, mouthwatering wine with toasty aromas, full-on black cherry flavors and a medium to full body. Moderate tannins add a little bite to the concentrated sour cherry, dark plum, black pepper and cinnamon notes that unfold slowly as you sip.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard is powerful, deep and substantial. Dark toned fruit, spice, lavender, licorice and leather all build in the glass. Ample and expansive, with tremendous depth, the 2022 is super-expressive, not to mention a total delight to taste. This finishes with a huge explosion of fruit and aromatics.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2022 Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard is a touch more intense, with ripe black cherry and black raspberry fruit as well as a gamey, floral, iron, exotic edge in its aromas and flavors. Moderately concentrated, rich, and structured, it has a beautiful mouthfeel, ripe, polished, yet building tannins, and a great finish. It's another straight-up thrilling Pinot Noir from this team.
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Wine Spectator
Friendly cherry and raspberry fruit leads the way, with light hints of black tea and dried anise infusing the finish. Drink now through 2026. 500 cases made.
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.