Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
I love the 2019 Pinot Noir La Encantada Vineyard. This beauty, which includes a touch of stems, offers a juicy, up-front, complex bouquet of raspberries, candied cherries, decayed flowers, forest floor, and hints of marine-like brine. It’s balanced and has a great mid-palate, medium body, and a terrific finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Toasty oak aromas wrap around the dark-cherry and vanilla scents of this bottling. There’s a bold tannic frame to the palate, giving structure to the stewed red-fruit and nutmeg flavors, with just enough acidity to carry through the finish.
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.