Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Aged in four-year-old barrels for 16 months, this bottling allows its elegant fruit to shine, showing concentrated black cherry, cola, rose petal and ginger aromas. A tight boysenberry note emerges on the palate, dusted with clove and lavender and cut by lively acidity. A thorough and complete wine.
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Wine & Spirits
This is a selection from Amy’s Vineyard aged in four-year-old neutral French oak barrels, so the fruit and site expression has no significant wood influence to battle. That cold-climate fruit comes across as brisk, seedy black raspberries with an umami note of kelp. It’s tight and juicy, ready to head in an oceanic direction with a grilled meaty fish like mackerel, or down a savory, spicy path with braised pork shoulder.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby-purple colored, the 2015 Pinot Noir Older Barrel has fragrant roses and violets notes over black cherries, mulberries and red plums, plus wafts of dried leaves and pepper. Medium-bodied with a solid backbone of firm, chewy tannins and lively acid, it has plenty of earthy layers and a black pepper note on the finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Pinot Noir Older Barrel (17 months in 4-year-old barrels) has a slightly darker profile, with notes of black cherries, earth and forest floor. It has plenty of fruit on the palate though and is nicely textured, balanced and fresh.
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.