Rediscovering Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir

[Jim_Cowan]

Domaine de Le Cote - hard to beat.
Best, jim

[Stephen_Pepe]

Mitch as to cost we received the industry discount. Their price is in line with most SRH single vineyard producers. Some are in the $75 per bottle range. Consider joining their wine club. Most wine clubs offer a 15-20% discount.
I agree with Larry about Kessler our neighbor to the west. I should have included them. Their pricing is quite good.

[larry_schaffer]

@Brian Gilp

@larry schaffer

I wouldn’t write off entire swaths of the area just yet - you might be surprised what you’ll be missing

But one can probably say that about every region out there.

It’s possible to break down wine people into two camps; those who go deep in a few regions and those who drink broadly across a lot of regions. But even among the broadest of wine drinkers, I don’t know anyone who has the knowledge to navigate every region and find the wines they like especially from a region doesn’t hit their sweet spot. So everyone ends off writing offf some areas as there is just not enough time (or money) to really understand them all.

And if I wasn’t clear, I was stating that I’m not writing off SRH Pinot. I really enjoyed a number of them this last visit. I plan to purchase more of them once the shipping window opens in the fall since I could only carry back one case on the plane.

Brian,

Sorry - was not trying to be flippant. And I totally understand your point and your perspective, especially after sampling a number of producers. I totally get it. My point is that there are plenty of folks doing wonderful things IMHO from parts of the SRH outside of the narrow area you were mentioning. And some of these folks are killing it at more reasonable prices - that’s all . . .

Cheers

[Peter_Simpson]

@Brian Gilp

I had planned to get to six places if time allowed and the other place on my list was ABC. I hadn’t tasted their wines in a long time and there is very limited distribution in my area. However, I went to the tasting room on Wednesday when the website said they were open only to find it wasn’t. There was a sign out front indicating that they are open only sat and sun. These things have a way of irritating me so it will probably be a while before I try ABC again.

I think you must have got your tasting rooms mixed up. The ABC tasting room in downtown Santa Barbara is open noon to 6 pm during the week, and 11 am to 6 pm on weekends. In fact we were there at 11:45 am on Thursday June 15th and they were already open.

[Brian_Gilp]

@Peter Simpson

@Brian Gilp

I had planned to get to six places if time allowed and the other place on my list was ABC. I hadn’t tasted their wines in a long time and there is very limited distribution in my area. However, I went to the tasting room on Wednesday when the website said they were open only to find it wasn’t. There was a sign out front indicating that they are open only sat and sun. These things have a way of irritating me so it will probably be a while before I try ABC again.

I think you must have got your tasting rooms mixed up. The ABC tasting room in downtown Santa Barbara is open noon to 6 pm during the week, and 11 am to 6 pm on weekends. In fact we were there at 11:45 am on Thursday June 15th and they were already open.

Interesting. I was definitely at the right place. It was the day before you were there at roughly 4:00. Lights on, door locked. Place empty. It looked open and I thought maybe someone just stepped out for a few minutes so I wandered around and came back to check again and it’s still empty and locked. Then I saw the sign that said wine tasting sat and sun so assumed that meant they were only open weekends now.

[Brian_Gilp]

@M McCombs

Is there a consensus on the differences between the single vineyard pinots by Tyler? I have only had the generic bottling. The first time I really liked it, second time it seemed a little more muted. Not bad, just like everything (frut, acid, aroma) was turned down a notch.

I can’t help. All I have tried are SVDs. All are very good and I liked them all. My favorite was the Sanford and Benedict but I generally prefer the S&B over most others.

[Matt_Mauldin]

@Brian Gilp

@M McCombs

Is there a consensus on the differences between the single vineyard pinots by Tyler? I have only had the generic bottling. The first time I really liked it, second time it seemed a little more muted. Not bad, just like everything (frut, acid, aroma) was turned down a notch.

I can’t help. All I have tried are SVDs. All are very good and I liked them all. My favorite was the Sanford and Benedict but I generally prefer the S&B over most others.

The Santa Barbara County generic bottling is definitely more oriented to earlier drinking. I don’t have it every vintage, but have enjoyed it when I’ve had it. The SVD’s are more complex and often a little dense young, but well balanced and elegant in style. I think they’re ideally 5-10 years from vintage wines or more.