Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A Domaine de la Romanee-Conti-like effort is the 2002 Pinot Noir Terraces. Boasting profound aromas, wonderful density, a surreal lightness of being, and a sweet attack of blue and black fruits intertwined with forest floor, flowers, and earth, it possesses superb sweetness, impressive precision, and tremendous harmony.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe and beautifully defined, with a rich, fleshy texture and loads of complex blackberry and blueberry, and a touch of rhubarb. Finishes with a firm core of ripe tannins, too, but the exuberant flavors push through.
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.