Winemaker Notes
With the compressed harvest of 2022 Niner had to get creative with their fermentations as they quickly filled all of their tanks. They fermented the wine in open-top stainless-steel tanks, a concrete tank and macro bins. As always with a single site varietal, they strive to create layers of complexity and included whole cluster, destemmed and dried stems components. The result of this dynamic winemaking in the face of a fast harvest yielded a beautiful example of coastal Pinot Noir. The 2022 vintage has dark fruit flavors contrasted with black tea and herbal qualities.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This hedonistic wine begins with intense aromas of black cherry on the inviting nose. That dark, rich cherry flavor is even more juicy yet also bright on the palate, where chai spice elements enliven the boysenberry jam 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.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.