Winemaker Notes
Since 1989 Fess Parker's family owned and operated winery has produced wines of superior quality and value. This delicious and approachable wine represents the best of what Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir has to offer. Bursting with flavors of spice, cranberry, light blueberry and strawberry, it displays great balance and a lingering finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Textbook, with harmony among well-defined ripe cherry and berry fruit, turned earth, cola spice and a subtle floral lift, all of it framed by tea-like tannins that provide elegant structure now and will for several years in the cellar.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir (Sta. Rita Hills) is a great introduction to the range. Medium in body and seamless, it delivers spiced cranberry, leather, resinous herbs and forest floor accents, with good liveliness and persistence through the finish. The élevage here is 11 months as opposed to the 18 that is typical in the other wines, which works so well to retain freshness here.
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Wine Enthusiast
Earthy aromas of currant, wild cherry, loamy earth and sagebrush introduce the nose to this wine. Wild cranberry, dusty fennel frond and and toasted herb flavors align on the palate.
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.