Winemaker Notes
The Hermandad Winemaker Series Pinot Noir offers aromas of cherries and strawberries. It is ripe on the palate, with subtle spicy notes. Sweet entry, good acidity that provides freshness, rough-textured tannins, accompanied by a persistent finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Woody spices, orange peel, dried strawberries and some herbs. A chewy pinot with quite a lot of spice and some grainy tannins on the palate. Would love to see more fruit concentration holding up this structure.
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.”
With a winning combination of cool weather, high elevation and well-draining alluvial soils, it is no surprise that Mendoza’s Uco Valley is one of the most exciting up-and-coming wine regions in Argentina. Healthy, easy-to-manage vines produce low yields of high-quality fruit, which in turn create flavorful, full-bodied wines with generous acidity.
This is the source of some of the best Malbec in Mendoza, which can range from value-priced to ultra-premium. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay also perform well here.