Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir Julia's Vineyard is more elegant and finesse-driven, with a beautiful perfume of framboise, wild strawberries, violets, and sappy flowers. All about red fruits and flowers, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness, a seamless, flawlessly balanced mouthfeel, good acidity, and just a hint of classic Santa Maria salinity on the finish. Aged 16 months in 21% new French oak, this brilliant Pinot Noir is up with the crème de la crème in the vintage.
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Wine Enthusiast
There’s a gamy element that extends across much of this Foxen vintage, and it works very well in certain bottlings like this one, which is light in hue but loaded on the nose with roasted berry and porcini aromas. There’s a sappy thyme and chaparral-scrub flavor to the palate, elevating the freshly smashed strawberry and cranberry core
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Wine & Spirits
Scents of sea wrack and black raspberry lead in this plush pinot, from an older vineyard on Cambria’s benchland property that it shares with area wineries. It’s all plums, fleshy and a touch blunt but with a direct, crowd-pleasing lusciousness. Decant a bottle for duck.
Santa Maria Valley lies mainly in northern Santa Barbara County, with a small portion of it overlapping southern San Luis Obispo County. It is close to the Pacific, and runs east-west, which means warmer air in the eastern end draws cool air off the ocean in the west, and brings it through the valley. This effect, combined with abundant sunshine, lengthens the growing season. The longer growing season leads to long hang time, which promotes both ripeness and optimal acidity levels in grape berries. As early as the 1970’s, Santa Maria Valley was recognized as being a superior source of wine grapes, certainly including Chardonnay and Syrah. But arguably the top variety here is Pinot Noir.
Originally a domain primarily of growers, including the Miller Family of the justifiably famous Bien Nacido Vineyard, this AVA is now home to over 30 wineries. Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir consistently offers full flavors of cherry, strawberry and raspberry, often accompanied by notes of spice, cola, vanilla and earth. They show impressive balance and elegance, as well as great versatility with food.