Steve,
I think that the changes at Calera began quite a bit before Josh left. In fact, he talked with me a good bit about his frustrations as climate change brought about rising inland temperatures and drought. These pushed alcohols higher (I barrel tasted those wines), something he worked hard to combat.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
Jim,
Spent almost 30 years doing this - making wine from both locations. There are obviously others. Matt Revelette now at Siduri, Eugenia Keegan did. Kathy Joseph. Dave Coventry did. Megan and now Alison at Walt. I am certain I am missing some.
It seems silly to me to talk about “California” as if it is one region. There are over 400 miles from Buellton to Boonville, and the differences are immense. As climate change occurs, we are seeing more differences depending on whether or not a vineyard has direct access to the ocean. Areas like the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Lucia Highlands are staying cool, and maintaining acidities, while areas in the RRV, depending on location, are warming. South to north really isn’t applicable if you have the ocean to cool you.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
Absolutely. It’s a small club. Relative to the number of folks that make either OR PN or CA PN the number that have done or are doing both is minuscule.
Also, for folks’ information when we had a block at Hirsch Vineyard at some point it became impossible to visit the site before harvest given the distance between our winery and Hirsch. Adam Lee had a block near ours and helped us with tracking the progress in September. If anything, Adam made the picking decision for that fruit. That’s my recollection 21+ years after the fact anyway.
Briceland is still making wine; I spoke with @Andrew_Morris about an order last week. I don’t think Arcadian is making wine an longer though, funnily enough, I just happened upon an older Arcadian that had gotten lost in my cellar.
All these small batch pinots mentioned and yet the most polarizing (and generally loathed on WB) Meomi is possibly the most triumphant (and top producing) CA pinot success story in the history of CA pinot?
well obviously we’re not going to include hall of fame producers in the top 10 out of fairness
Just because I can …
Average / Median / Modal 1&2 USD Price by for 750ml bottle of Pinot Noir from Vintages 2011-2021 :
Oregon 47.48 45.00 60.00 / 50.00
California 57.41 53.10 60.00 / 75.00
Please note, this was just a fun exercise work on learning some data queries.
I wish the topic used “Your Favorite” instead of a generic “Top 10”. There’d probably but probably not be less bickering but I suppose that’s the nature of the beast. OR, WA (SA etc) etc as expected crept in and took the discussion into another direction. Larry with the early win emoji. A lot of these comments read like people are drain pouring CA pinots.
It was my honor to help out then.
It’ll be interesting to see how things play out. From 1995 to 2023, I would say that I’ve seen more changes in picking dates and harvest numbers in the northern Willamette Valley (possible exception of Van Duzer Corridor) than I have in California’s Coast areas.
Adam Lee
Clarice Wine Company
definitely nature of the beast territory. we all hate the 100 point scale and top 10 lists and slideshows and what grape would you be personality quizzes but we’re also largely incapable of ignoring the lizard brain fascination with them.
i think CA pinot is widely purchased and consumed by WB readers but since the posting subset is fairly experienced, there’s less a sense of discovery and trendiness there.
it’s more fun (and certainly gets more engagement) to talk about oregon, germany, etc where there is less collective experience so discovery is possible (and there are some pretty stalwart representatives from that industry that do a lot of work here to raise awareness) - and of course, burgundy where price and scarcity create excitement and curiosity.
That’s kinda true - but as you can see by many of the responses, folks tend to gravitate towards only certain regions in CA and not necessarily explore many. So many ‘unturned stones’ throughout the state to continue to explore . . .
Cheers
well larry i won’t disagree, nor would i say you haven’t done your share to raise awareness of your corner of the world and its virtues.
but if it’s not happening for other CA regions, it could be a variety of reasons - perhaps the region’s story isn’t clear or seductive enough to create a brand - perhaps the region needs some influencer help - perhaps the excitement hasn’t been kindled by critics or the press - perhaps the region hasn’t successfully courted somm/wine directors - …ultimately, wine still has to get through the tastemakers and gatekeepers in order to get to the enthusiast. they have the platforms, the megaphones, and create the shorthand.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for bringing us up in this thread.
I can say with certainty that Briceland IS still an option. Shoot me an email: andrew@bricelandvineyards.com and I can send over our current list. I am happy to hear from your other post here that you enjoyed the wines in the past. Cheers!
Lists are hard.
Here we go, anyway…
Domaine de La Cote. (I LOVE their style so much I am grateful they exist.)
Calera, especially the Jensen. One of my early favorite pinot noir discoveries. Another great house style, but I am not fully up to date for the last few vintages.)
Rochioli. (These hold up well, as added incentive to love them. We drink early 90s now and they remain great.)
Williams Selyem. I have enjoyed tasting their evolution over time. I will steal from Tom Hill, followed them from the beginning. It is our wine group’s favorite pinot, and we all agree about their ageability.)
Santa Cruz Mountain Winery: I used to love coming across that Bobcat label in the 80s!
Lynmar. It doesn’t get the love it deserves, very terrific wines. Also one of the great wineries to visit for tasting.
Peter Michael. They are priced so I drink about 2 a year, but they have a great “cool weather” style for me. These wines are very yin!
Hanzell. Classic classic classic! This list is not in order, by the way. Hanzell is historically great.
Fiddlehead. All I can say is please try some of their Santa Rita Hills wines.
Also untried in recent vintages, but my past experience has been great - Joseph Swan.
Adding Merry Edwards, I also enjoy her style.
Too early for the list, but great so far: Aubert, a soft style, to me. Rivers Marie, Salty Goats was a good recent arrival.
A wee bit of the bully pulpit: I can’t afford Marcassin, but they are as good as DRC according to Rudy.
Crazy talk: Roederer Estate has made still Pinot Noir and crushed it. I’d call it AFWE style, but loads of minerality, not overripe. It might not be to everyone’s palate, but the ones I’ve tried willy nilly have been right up my alley.
Hi Adam,
In your personal experience, which vintage you think made the turning point for Calera house style?
The comparison between CA and OR PN was the impetus for this project. People have a lot of preconceived notions that aren’t necessarily true.
Kelley and I split blocks at Durant (in 2022 I sold her some of my fruit but her 2023 is a different block) and at Freedom Hill we now (as of 2019) split a block of Pommard. We both get Weber fruit but pretty different locations. Marcus has the block directly/sort of in between my 2 blocks at Durant.
There was some Oregon project years ago amongst like 5-6 wineries to make wine from shared blocks.
#1) Littorai
#2) Marcassin
After that, in no particular order:
-Williams Selyem
-Rhys
-Rivers Marie
-Kutch
-Cirq (before they went off the rails pricewise)
In the “occasional” category, I own but have yet to try but am very excited about:
-Pott
-Roy Piper
Hi Alex,
Good point, I guess I have not thinking it thoroughly enough when I started the post…
guess English is still pretty hard for me as it is second language…
Much appreciate the comment and this is the beautiful value of this forum.
New to me as well. Jancis just posted a glowing write-up this morning.