Winemaker Notes
Youthful and exuberant on the nose, the 2016 Vista Verde Vineyard Pinot Noir is a showy wine. Notes of plum and berry mix with vanilla and wood spices. Hints of purple flowers combined with orange rind are offset by elements of chalk and flint. Cedar and herbs complete the wonderfully complex nose. In the mouth, this wine showcases plum and currant flavors with meaty notes in the background. Minerals and earthiness round out the finish in this elegant offering.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Beautifully plump aromas of black plum, violet, rose and baked fennel show on the nose of this bottling. Soft and full on the palate, it offers plenty of fruit surrounding the earthy core, with flavors of wild cherry, cherry pit, Alpine strawberry, loam and herb.
Editors' Choice -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Pinot Noir Vista Verde comes from an estate vineyard near Calera, with vines planted at high elevations on limestone soils. Pale to medium ruby-purple, it gives dried cranberries, blueberries and boysenberries on the nose, with hints of cinnamon stick, saline, dried leaves, warm earth, tree bark, black tea leaves and dried flowers. Light to medium-bodied, it has a great core of ripe fruits with swirls of earthiness, very fine-grained tannins and juicy acidity, finishing long and berry-laced.
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.”
Taking advantage of the cool Pacific breezes that arrive via gaps between the Gabilan Range and the Santa Lucia Mountains, San Benito AVA is a great Central coast source for cool climate whites and Pinot noir.