Pinot Noir from the Carneros region ranks among the finest in California. We know. We’ve been making it, growing it and experimenting with Carneros Pinot for more than 25 years. What we’ve discovered is that if we let the character of Carneros guide our Pinot winemaking effort, there still remains plenty of room for our own particular style to compliment and augment what Mother Nature so generously gives us.
It’s with our Carneros bottling of Pinot Noir where our experience, house style and the essence of our appellation shows most clearly. We work with more than a dozen vineyards located throughout Carneros but with a heavier emphasis on the Napa Valley side of the AVA. Our reverence for the appellation is most obvious by the gentle handling the grapes and wine receive from vineyard to bottle. Gentleness and restraint are critical to making high caliber Pinot Noir that maintains the mark of the vineyard, rather than simply the mark of the producer.
To achieve a style of wine we believe delivers varietal and regional integrity we undertake a careful, methodical exercise in blending. In late winter, after all our lots have completed malolactic fermentation and have been resting in small French oak barrels, we begin the search for our “Carneros” bottling. In tasting through our barreled Pinot Noir we are above all looking for those lots that show a balance of tannin and acid, fruit flavors that while rich, dark-red and complex, are not overblown or leaning toward the burnt jam style of Pinot you sometimes see. Our Carneros bottling delivers distinctive Pinot Noir character in a wine of power, grace and elegance.