Winemaker Notes
Planted more than fifty years ago, this iconic vineyard site is the home to the original pinot plantings in the Santa Rita Hills. Tyler Winery's section of this vineyard routinely provides with the most pure and ethereal barrels in their cellar. There's an unrivaled elegance and persistence year after year that can be directly contributed to vine age and pedigree.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir Sanford & Benedict exudes a confidently graceful, understated swagger consistent across this vineyard's best expressions. On the nose, Tyler's expression is radiantly weightless, combining gorgeous, floral, spice and underbrush aromas that measurably gain amplitude with aeration. The palate echoes this ethereal quality with a translucent succulence that is equal parts vertical and horizontal, moving into a slow-moving, classy and supremely refined finish.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Sanford & Benedict Vineyard is laced with sweet dried cherry, mint, spice, cedar, leather, tobacco and incense. It is one of the more delicate, aromatic wines in this range. Nervy tannins lend energy and shape. There's plenty of energy here, but also a light mid-palate. As always, the old-vines part of the vineyard yielded a Pinot with strong savory and floral notes but less in the way of overtly forward fruit.
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.