Winemaker Notes
A stunning blend of power and elegance, Rosella’s Vineyard delivers beautiful lifted floral and dusty herbal notes with a core of juicy berries that is distinctly redder than our Pinot Noir vineyards further south. Ample fruit and structure promise the long aging potential of this exceptional vintage. Rose petals, cherries, and warm spice notes abound, typical of our home ranch vineyard.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
From a cooler site in the middle of the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation, the 2022 Pinot Noir Rosella's Vineyard offers more mulberry and wild strawberry fruit as well as a beautiful core of sappy flowers, violets, and underbrush. I love its overall purity and precision, and it's medium-bodied, has ripe, polished tannins, integrated acidity, and a great finish. It's up with the creme de la creme of the appellation, and it's going to have at least 10-12 years of prime drinking. It benefits from air if drinking any time soon.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Rosella's Vineyard is lighter in the context of the ROAR lineup. More floral and savory in style, the Rosella’s is supremely elegant, eschewing bold fruit in favor of soft textures and beguiling aromatics—white flower, tangerine peel, lavender and exotic spice. Dusty tannins grip the long finish. This is really nicely done.
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Wine Enthusiast
A vivid array of ripe red fruit aromas, from black to sour cherry and pomegranate, are complemented by lively pinches of white pepper and eucalyptus leaf on the nose of this bottling. The palate is more directly lush, showing baked black cherry and creamy cola, chai and root beer spice flavors.
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Wine Spectator
This delicious red delivers racy, focused and alluring blood orange and raspberry coulis notes, with gently singed anise and cedar accents, plus an underlying savory edge, all draped in a perfume of smoldering red tea. Drink now through 2033.
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.