Winemaker Notes
This Pinot Noir exhibits a true sense of place offering forward notes of black cherry, red plum, wild strawberry and floral notes supported by attractive mineral and spicy notes. This is a structured Pinot Noir that retains elegance and gracefulness due to bright natural acidity.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
From the family's westernmost vineyard, this bottling is fabulously complex. It shows dense dried fruit and turned earth aromas, along with chaparral, smoke, clove and nutmeg. Those wild elements figure strongly on the sip, which shows thyme, rosemary and sagebrush accents around a core of plum, pomegranate and hibiscus flavors. A vanilla flair graces the finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Pinot Noir Parker West Vineyard reveals a pale to medium ruby-purple color and brightly scented nose of Bing cherries, red currants and lavender with touches of garrigue and tree bark. Medium-bodied, fine and fresh in the mouth, it has soft, silky tannins and plenty of vitality, finishing with red berry and earth layers.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Pinot Noir Parker West is another excellent wine from a site in the Sta. Rita Hills. Black cherries, wild strawberries, hard candy and flowers all flow to a medium-bodied, supple, nicely textured Pinot Noir to drink over the coming 4-5 years. It saw 30% stems and 16 months in 43% new French oak.
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.