Winemaker Notes
A bright light red wine - proper Pinot Noir in color. The bouquet is wild strawberry with a hint of tea leaf, sweet spice, and woodsmoke. A silky and elegant wine on the palate, with notes of strawberry, cocoa nib, and autumn leaves. It is clean and bright in the mouth, with good concentration, vibrant acidity, and fine-grained tannins. This is a very elegant, fresh interpretation of Pinot Noir for younger drinking.
Professional Ratings
-
Vinous
The 2021 Pinot Noir Cru Selection opens with a gently spiced bouquet of crushed strawberries, clove and balsam herbs. It is pure in form, with tantalizing acidity and crisp mineral tones supporting its ripe wild berry fruit. Gentle tension and salty resonance linger as this finishes long and lightly tannic, leaving a tart blackberry twang.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Fresh-crushed cranberries leap skyward, trailing wisps of whole cinnamon stick and wild herbs like a climber's chalk dust in mountain air. The palate dances between sour cherry and pomegranate gummies, zipping across the tongue with taught precision before settling into a sweet tea finish that calls for another sip.
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 picturesque, eastern European wine growing nation, Slovenia can claim one of the most ancient winemaking cultures in all of Europe. Its history dates back to the Celts and Illyrians tribes, well before the Romans had any influence on France, Spain or Germany. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that Slovenia developed a more refined, private-sector wine industry.
Today it is a powerful source of some of the industry’s most important orange wines (whites made with extended skin contact); furthermore, fully three quarters of the country’s wine production is white.
Slovenian weather is continental with hot summers and cold, wet winters. It is divided into three wine regions: Podravje in Slovenia’s northeast; Primorska in its west, close to Italy; and Posavje in its southeast. These are further divided to nine wine districts.