Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Tondré Grapefield was bin-fermented with frequent punchdowns, yielding a wine of extraordinarily dark color and rich fruit. Milk chocolate, sweet dark cherry, cinnamon and black licorice coast through this extroverted, slightly pushed wine. Earth and tobacco tones emerge with time in the glass. This will certainly have its fans, but it’s right on the edge.
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.