Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Siduri Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir shows great complexity and concentration, due in part to our greater combination of source locations. The wine is rich and more harmonious than the 2015 at this early stage of its development. This is the unusual Sta. Rita Hills wine that drinks well right out of the gate.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills comes from a mix of vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills and is a terrific value as well as a great buy for readers looking to understand the region. A ripe, sexy wine that's loaded with notions of ripe cherries, strawberries, dried herbs, and underbrush, it’s big, rich, and mouthfilling, yet also balanced and elegant. It will easily keep for 5-6 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills has a pale to medium ruby-purple color and scents of blueberry, boysenberry, warm black cherries and berries with touches of smoke, turned earth and a faint floral hint. Light to medium-bodied, it offers great intensity of blue and black fruit in the mouth with a frame of firm, grainy tannins and great juicy acidity, finishing long with some warm spice coming through. 1,390 cases produced. Rating: 91+
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Wine Spectator
Lush and packed with vibrant cherry, raspberry and red plum flavors that feature toothsome forest floor notes. Engaging minerality and rich spiciness show on the finish. Drink now through 2021.
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.