I love the detailed vineyard profiles. This is a huge undertaking for a “one man band” and will become a terrific resource: in-depth understanding of better known vineyards and shining his spotlight on promising newcomers. Kudos and thank you!
I just wish he’d drop the forced packaging of this as, “a comparable grand cru system” to Burgundy. It’s just silly and it diminishes the whole endeavor.
Although the term grand cru has been used by some to designate the finest vineyards, I prefer to use the term ”elite.” Elite vineyards have a long and consistent history of producing great wines…
Rusty knows better than I that it’s a biiiig stretch to claim that GC Burgundy sites and “elite” Cali sites both share, “a long and consistent history of producing great wines.” Nearly every vineyard profiled in the current issue was planted in the 1990s/2000s, some are even more recent. The two Rhys vineyards profiled were planted 2000-2004, first vintages a couple years later. Tilton Hill, a GC/Elite “monopole” owned by Benovia, was planted in 2010 and the first vintage was 2012. Compare to, say, Clos de Tart, a GC monopole about 900 years old.
California Pinot is still in its infancy, even by California standards. That’s a good thing. Maybe a great thing. It’s dynamic and ever changing. I’ve never heard of Benovia Tilton Hill. Because of PoP, I want to try it. 20 years from now we’ll be posting TNs and allocation announcements of a vineyard that has yet to be planted. Not so with Burgundy, where things are they way they are because that’s how it’s been for centuries. Rusty’s list is better off without the GC comparison baggage.