Winemaker Notes
Aromatically is full of enticingly ripe fruits such as black currents and bing cherries, along with oranges, rose hips, and smoky sandalwood. On the palate, the wine has a lively amount of acidity as well as juicy, well-integrated tannins that provide a strong backbone for the wine that just won't quit.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Lively aromas of strawberry, raspberry, wild mint and tarragon make for a stunning nose on this bottling, presenting bright, juicy red fruit with potent herbs in complementary ways. Bay, eucalyptus leaf and cracked rainbow-pepper-corn flavors spice up the raspberry jam core of the palate.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Leading off the reds, the 2021 Pinot Noir Sandy's comes from vines planted in 1997 (by Brent and Chad Melville) and was 50% destemmed and aged in neutral oak. It reveals a translucent ruby hue as well as terrific intensity in its mulled cherries, black tea, orange zest, and loamy soil-like nuances. It's complex, medium to full-bodied, has a fresher, focused, chiseled style, and outstanding length, with just a kiss of classic Sta. Rita Hills marine-like salinity on the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir Sandy's Block, vinified with 50% whole clusters, has detailed aromas of smoked cranberries, mossy bark, wildflowers and bitter orange. The medium-bodied palate features a surprisingly concentrated core of fruit framed by chalky tannins and fireworks of fresh acidity, and it has a long, perfumed finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Sandy is Melville’s aunt, as well as an appropriate name for this stretch of pure sand planted to a range of clones. That mix of vines builds complexity into the aromatics of this wine, boosted by 25 percent of whole clusters in the fermentation, matured in neutral oak barrels. It’s all lavender and black-tea notes, with fleshy plum fruit, ready for a game feast, like venison tenderloin with a cherry reduction.
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.