Winemaker Notes
Aromas of red cherry, raspberry, red plum, chocolate, forest floor, cigar box, cured tobacco, and cinnamon. Flavors of black cherry, black raspberry, grilled sage, grilled plum, earth, vanilla and milk chocolate.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Very elegant nose with essence of cherry and blackcurrant, strawberry and raspberry with hints of chocolate chips. Full-bodied but well-balanced, quite rich and intense with a lovely freshness. Drinking Window 2021 - 2030.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from a single clone of Pinot Noir and brought up in 46% new French oak, the 2018 Pinot Noir Clone 115 reveals a more ruby/plum color as well as spiced cherries, cola, spring flowers, and spicy incense. Rich, medium-bodied, and balanced, it stays nicely focused and elegant on the palate, with fine tannins and outstanding length.
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Wine Enthusiast
This clonal showcase offers strong aromas of incense, bay leaf, iron shavings, mushroom and elderberry. These tones lead into a palate that’s hefty in dry tannins, but they uphold the roasted berry, black-plum, iodine and forest floor flavors. Editors’ Choice.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Fess Parker Clone 115 Pinot Noir is complex and authentic. TASTING NOTES: This wine brings aromas and flavors of ripe berries, savory spices, red fruit, and chalk to the fore. Enjoy it with grilled salmon fillets. (Tasted: April 14, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
Established in 1989, Fess Parker Winery is a multi-generational family owned and operated winery that has a rich heritage in Santa Barbara County. Fess Parker produces premium, small-lot, vineyard designated Burgundian varietals from the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley as well as Rhône varietals from their organically farmed, SIP Certified estate vineyard.
Outstanding fruit sources, including some of the finest vineyards in the county, coupled with skilled winemaking, led by Blair Fox, form the foundation for the winery’s success. Now three generations in, the Fess Parker Family is proud to carry on Fess’s legacy of wine heritage and hospitality in Santa Barbara.
Fess Parker Winery was proud to be named a Top 100 Winery in the World by Wine & Spirits Magazine in both 2022 and 2023.
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.