Winemaker Notes
Aromas and flavors of red plum, raspberry, wild strawberry, red cherry, vanilla, milk chocolate, sassafras, nutmeg, clove, baking spices, pain grille and forest floor.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir Pommard Clone starts off with some baked cherry and mulberry fruits as well as some savory, earthy notes, yet it blossoms with time in the glass to show more floral and pretty nuances. Impeccably balanced on the palate, this medium-bodied, clean, lively, lengthy Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir will keep for 5-7 years.
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Wine & Spirits
Spicy and ripe, this wine’s heady scent mingles with savory notes—cedar, licorice root and pine tips. Despite the wine’s lavish oak, the ripe plum and cherry flavors have a lean contour, partly from the Pommard clone grown in a cool appellation.
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Wine Spectator
Refined, with lots of rich forest floor and underbrush notes to the cherry tart and dark currant flavors. Shows chocolate mousse accents on the spicy finish, with plenty of creaminess. Drink now
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Wine Enthusiast
This clonal selection is very spicy on the nose, showing star anise and mace, as well as blackberry sorbet and plump, dark-strawberry aromas. The palate is very rich and oak-driven, with loads of barrel spice set against tart red fruit.
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.