Winemaker Notes
With a rich and vivid hue, the 2005 Estate bottling offers inviting and expressive aromas of fruit spice, red fruits, minerality and a soft, earthy note. Beautifully structured, the palate bursts with lifted flavors of black cherry, black plum and perfume. The lush fruit combined with the baking spice notes from aging in French oak broadens the mouthfeel and gives this full and rich wine definition and length.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is Etude’s inaugural bottling of this wine, a block designation from the estate. It shows not only classic Carneros quality, but something exotic. Dry and complex, the wine has cherry, cassis, raspberry and new oak flavors, with good acidity. That extra something is a feral, earthy quality, suggesting olive tapenade, sweet leather, tobacco and mushrooms that has got to come from terroir. Youthfully great now, and should age effortlessly for the next 8 to 10 years.
As early as the 1970s Carneros became known as a source of terrific Pinot Noir, and was one of the first California regions to gain such a reputation. The combination of sunny days, cooling fog and thin clay soils are tailor-made for the variety. Another factor in Pinot Noir’s prominent place here is vintners’ willingness to experiment widely. The history of the grape in Carneros is marked by continuous research into clonal variations, viticultural techniques and site selection. Careful evaluation over time has revealed a signature flavor profile as well. Complex aromas and flavors of cherry, red berry, spice, earth and cola appear time and again in Carneros Pinot Noir. To this day the appellation remains one of California’s standard bearers for the variety.