2003 Los Carneros, Sonoma Valley - Library Selection
Released
August 2007, 172 cases produced
Internet-Direct Price: $60.00 / 750 mL bottle
Twenty-aught-three was a winemaker's vintage - it gave us low-yield, perfectly ripe crops of Pinot Noir that retained more of the grape's natural acidity than any vintage in memory. These factors came together with our craft to deliver a group of wines that are highly structured, and still very closed in even after 2-1/2 years in barrel and 3 years in bottle.
This Carneros bottling like our other two Pinot Noirs from the 2003 vintage is one of the most monolithic wines we have produced since the phenomenal 1992 vintage. The 2003 vintage yielded some of the most structured Pinot Noir in our experience angular and waiting to develop finesse promising to reward long cellaring but engaging to drink now.
Winemaker's tasting notes:
The appearance in the glass is one of dark for Pinot Noir purple-red color and excellent clarity. The aromas are closed, opening to loganberry-cherry fruit, earth, wet stone, nutmeg, pain d΄epice, briar, vanilla, oak and sage. In the mouth the wine shows medium body and a complex fruity and spicy palate, great acid structure balanced with slightly blocky tannins, and a long woodsy-earthy finish.
We sometimes describe our thoroughly complicated, soil-driven Pinot Noirs as vini per meditazione meditation wines because they can be savored in the glass over hours of conversation or contemplation. Our Pinots also pair well with everything from rich duck and lamb dishes to grilled salmon and cheeses with fruit.
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This is the first of our triptych of Pinot Noir from the superlative 2003 vintage. Our Los Carneros Pinot is the more earthy and most currently approachable of the three.
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