Winemaker Notes
Opening with cherry cola, vanilla, plum, violet, and dark chocolate. The palate is both plush and focused, with ripe cherry, dried orange peel, hibiscus tea, and tobacco wrapped in fine chalky tannins. A regal, elegant wine—one of California's finest expressions of Pinot.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from the Hyde Vineyard in Carneros, the 2023 Pinot Noir Magic Moments sports a deep ruby, semi-opaque hue and offers remarkable purity in its black raspberry and framboise-like core of fruit, along with perfumed floral, spice, and subtle oak-driven aromatics. Aged 19 months in 65% new French oak, it carries to a medium to full-bodied, concentrated Pinot Noir with beautifully integrated acidity, a supple, layered mouthfeel, and ample ripe tannins. It’s another sensational Paul Lato Pinot Noir that readers will love to drink any time over the coming decade. Drink 2025-2035.
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Vinous
The 2023 Pinot Noir Hyde Vineyard Magic Moments is inky and ripe, pressing forward with an array of weighty dark fruit, exotic spices and lavender. The acidity here is sneaky, washing across the palate as opposed to functioning like a spine, but the 2023 remains very soft and supple through and through.
As early as the 1970s Carneros became known as a source of terrific Pinot Noir, and was one of the first California regions to gain such a reputation. The combination of sunny days, cooling fog and thin clay soils are tailor-made for the variety. Another factor in Pinot Noir’s prominent place here is vintners’ willingness to experiment widely. The history of the grape in Carneros is marked by continuous research into clonal variations, viticultural techniques and site selection. Careful evaluation over time has revealed a signature flavor profile as well. Complex aromas and flavors of cherry, red berry, spice, earth and cola appear time and again in Carneros Pinot Noir. To this day the appellation remains one of California’s standard bearers for the variety.