Winemaker Notes
Aromas of wild strawberry, red cherry, clove, forest floor, nutmeg, pain grille and vanilla. Flavors of red plum, raspberry, wild strawberry, sassafras, milk chocolate, baking spice and vanilla.
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2017 Pinot Noir Pommard Clone (17 months in 50% new French oak) offers a ruby/plum color as well as lots of pure blackberry and black cherry fruit intermixed with underbrush, ground herbs, orange peel, and earth. Fresh, medium-bodied, with good acidity and fine tannins, it's a beautifully complex, balanced wine from this estate.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Seared black cherries, red and purple flowers, sage and vanilla make for a very compelling nose on this bottling of a single clone. The palate is fresh with snappy raspberry flavors and then broadens toward baking-spice flavors, proving quite lush and delicious.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir Pommard Clone has a pale to medium ruby color and nose of spiced cranberry sauce, stewed rhubarb, pepper, black berries, forest floor and tobacco leaf. Medium-bodied and silky with concentrated earthy fruits, it has grainy tannins and great juicy freshness, finishing long and earthy.
-
Wine & Spirits
All chocolate and caramel at first pass, this has a savory fruit note, like slightly underripe plums, that gives the wine its edge. The tarry tannins point to a match with barbecued beef.
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.