Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Pinot Noir Garys' Vineyard comes all from the Pisoni and Calera clones and saw 54% new French oak. Another complex, Burgundian style release from this team, it offers notes of wild strawberries, cured meats, iodine, and damp earth, with more violet and floral notes developing with time in the glass. Beautifully layered, pure, and silky on the palate, with polished tannins, it shows the class of this great vintage and is going to drink brilliantly for at least a decade.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Starting out with an enveloping, absolutely gorgeous nose of concentrated, optimally ripened cherries that, with but a brief bit of air, becomes richer and more layered as a trim touch of crème caramel sweetness and shadings of dark soil add to the mix, this deeply satisfying offering from Garys’ Vineyard more than follows through on its aromatic promise with sumptuous, beautifully composed, incisively varietal flavors and impresses as much for its balance and length as it does for its fleshiness and fruity largesse. While it is built to age handsomely, and we see the potential for a good six to eight years of positive growth, it is so enjoyable right now that it will test the resolve of even the most patient Pinot collectors.
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Wine Enthusiast
Red- and ripe baked cherry and strawberry-cream aromas pair with crushed slate and wild mint on the nose of this bottling. The palate is aggressively ripe on the sip, where more red-fruit flavors meet with candied plum and wild mints.
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.”
Perhaps the most highly regarded appellation within Monterey County, Santa Lucia Highlands AVA benefits from a combination of warm morning sunshine and brisk afternoon breezes, allowing grapes to ripen slowly and fully. The result is concentrated, flavorful wines that retain their natural acidity. Wineries here do not shy away from innovation, and place a high priority on sustainable viticultural practices.
The climatic conditions here are perfectly suited to the production of ripe, rich Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These Burgundian varieties dominate an overwhelming percentage of plantings, though growers have also found success with Syrah, Riesling and Pinot Gris.