Winemaker Notes
Rich bing cherry, plum, and herbs – our 2017 Santa Clara Valley Pinot Noir is a spicy fruit pie in a glass. The cherry and plum aromas and flavors jump to the nose and palate. There’s an underlying savory current of mushroom and soy sauce. A touch of vanilla bean and spice from the barrels both fill out the “middle” and complete the long finish.
FOOD PAIRING:
Pair with grilled salmon, a simple roast chicken, or a pancetta-wrapped pork tenderloin.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of rusty earth, baked red cherry, strawberry and dried herbs show on the nose of this bottling from the Gilroy area. Rounded red-cherry flavors meet with wild chaparral herbs on the tangy palate.
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.”
Home to some of California’s most influential winemaking pioneers of the late 1800s, Paul Masson and Charles Lefranc, the Santa Clara Valley AVA hugs up against the southwestern border of today’s famous Silicon Valley and excels in the production of bold reds, as well as some whites.