Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Pinot Noir Estate is a textbook, elegant offering from Mount Eden, although in very limited quantities due to an extremely dry vintage and resultant poor yields. It has a perfumed, alluring nose of dried flowers, orange peel, oolong tea and brick dust. A subtle, refined, precise texture unfolds on the palate, leading to a beautiful, flowing finish of weightless intensity.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Seeing one-third whole clusters and 12 months in barrel, the 2014 Pinot Noir Estate has a subtle, nuanced style as well as terrific notes of dried strawberries, red currants, spice-box and forest floor. It's elegant, seamless and silky on the palate, with fine tannin and impeccable balance. Give it a few years to develop more complexity (although I'd happily drink it today) and it's going to keep for 10-15+ years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Wild strawberry and plum mix with subtle yet sultry notes of nutmeg, mace, loam, graphite and game on the nose of this bottling. Sizzling acidity leads the palate, carrying cherry, plum and red apple flavors, followed by layers of eucalyptus and pine forest.
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Wine & Spirits
Jeffrey Patterson is committed to dry farming his vines, and continued through this third year of drought, when his vineyard received a total of 14 inches of rain for the season. He sustained his vines by limiting their crop, and decided to pick those concentrated grapes starting on August 4th, the earliest harvest in the estate’s history. Yet despite the extremity of the season, the wine feels gracious and refined. It has the cool feel of the air in a coastal forest, mossy and piney, lasting on an earthy savor. The texture is firm and juicy, while the wine isn’t overtly fruity. This should be a fascinating vintage of Mount Eden to watch as it develops over the next decade.
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Decanter
The lively, spicy, oaky nose has aromas of coffee and vanilla countered by rich, vibrant red fruits and a rose petal note. The palate displays flair and lift despite its concentration, with plenty of grip without any astringency. Floral, polished and long.
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 rugged and topographically diverse cool-climate appellation with a rich history, the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA stretches from Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, to the northern border of Monterey County. Elevations range from 800 feet to upwards of 3,000 and microclimates vary substantially depending on which side of the mountains the vineyards lie; cool ocean winds and fog play an important role here. This can be a challenging region in which to grow grapes, but it is well worth the effort. Santa Cruz Mountains wines are noted for balanced acidity levels, often showing great aging potential. Wine has been made here since the 1800s, most notably from the legendary Ridge Vineyards, whose Monte Bello vineyard garners international admiration.
Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are the stars of this region, while Merlot and Zinfandel also perform quite well. Organic and sustainable vineyard practices are becoming increasingly common.