Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Pinot Noir La Encantada Vineyard Sta. Rita Hills is a beautiful effort that spent 16 months in 33% new French oak prior to being bottled un-fined and unfiltered. Showing notions of cherry pits, framboise, mint and spring flowers, it flows onto the palate with a rich, seamless texture, outstanding purity of fruit and a nicely focused, layered finish that keeps you coming back to the glass. Completely destemmed, it shows the prettier side the variety, and will shine for 5-7 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Thyme, wet slate and olallieberry reduction sauce lead the nose on this single-vineyard study from veteran winemakers Billy Wathen and Dick Dore. Its rich, fruit-forward mouthfeel features ripe raspberries, plum skin tartness and black tea tannins.
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.