Ryan Cochrane Fiddlestix Vineyard Pinot Noir 2015
-
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Candied red fruits of raspberry and pomegranate meet with rhubarb pie, sweet thyme and ripe tomato on the nose of this bottling by a San Francisco accountant-turned-vintner. It's supple and soft on the palate, with more tomato flavors as well as fennel pollen and tarragon.
Other Vintages
2016-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine
Enthusiast
Ryan Cochrane makes hand-crafted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in extremely small quantities. With grapes sourced from the best vineyards, Ryan produces food-friendly, structured wines that reflect the sites from which they originated. More importantly, he just wants to create wines that make people smile.
Back in 2009, he wasn’t smiling a lot. The advertising agency he was working at had just imploded. Ryan started freelancing, but it was a bad time for work in San Francisco. He had always dreamed about making wine, so one foggy morning in July, he decided to stop dreaming about it and do it for reals.
He contacted Roger Nicolas at RN Estate in Paso Robles and asked if he could intern with him. Roger makes beautiful wines, but he was equally enamored of his DEY (do everything yourself) approach to his business. That year, he helped in all phases of harvest, from vineyard work in the spring to pressing and barreling in the fall.
Ryan came back to RNE in 2010, and made 24.5 cases of his inaugural Pinot Noir on the side. In 2011, he tripled his production and was promoted to Roger’s assistant winemaker. He made two different Pinots in 2012 and his very first Chardonnay in 2013. All from two of the most extraordinary vineyards in Santa Barbara County.
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 superior source of California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills is the coolest, westernmost sub-region of the larger Santa Ynez Valley appellation within Santa Barbara County. This relatively new AVA is unquestionably one to keep an eye on.
The climate of Sta. Rita Hills is a natural match for Chardonnay and Pinot noir, thanks to the crisp ocean breezes and well-drained, limestone-rich calcareous soil. Here, grapes ripen just enough, while retaining brisk acidity and harmonious balance.