Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Sheer opulence is the hallmark of this wine. Call it feminine in its soft silkiness, and the way the raspberry, cherry and sandalwood flavors caress the palate. Yet there’s a firmness of structure, a stony, minerally quality that lends power and authority. Great now, and will develop in the bottle for the next 6–8 years.
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Wine Spectator
This dense, focused, taut wine teases with complex mineral and dried berry notes. Slow to unfold, requiring some patience or aeration. All the pieces are in the right place. Needs time. Best from 2013 through 2020.
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.”
One of the coolest growing areas in California, the Arroyo Grande Valley runs from the southwest to the northeast, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean and is part of the Central Coast AVA. Situated so that cold Pacific Ocean air and fog is allowed to filter into the valley, Arroyo Grande also has an incredibly long growing season. Bud break occurs in February in most years with flowering in May and harvest in late September; the area is classified as cool Mediterranean.
These weather factors combined with the soil types—continental and marine rocks, greywacke, limestone, shale and volcanic—create wines with great concentration and fresh acidity. The cooler end of the valley is perfect for Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and is a good producer of sparkling wines. The warmer, more inland part of the valley is home to some of California’s oldest Zinfandel vines.