Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Powerful aromas of dark cherry, strawberry jam and crushed star anise make for a hedonistic nose on this bottling. The palate ranges from black cherry to baked berry, with cardamom and more star anise as well as a firm tannic frame standing in the background.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The appellation 2021 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills (5% stems) is up-front and charming, with beautiful darker cherry and mulberry fruits, medium body, ripe, nicely integrated tannins, and some classic herbal, earthy, spicy nuances. It's impeccably made and thoroughly enjoyable. It should drink well for 4-5 years.
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Wine Spectator
A ripe, inviting style, with a delicious core of plum, raspberry and maraschino cherry fruit flavors, which meld nicely with singed anise and apple wood through the caressing finish.
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.