2020 Racines, Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills, California, USA

Description

Sanford & Benedict vineyard is the Sta Rita Hills' highest calling for Pinot Noir grapes. Made from three parcels within the site, including some own-rooted vines from 1971. This Pinot Noir is indelibly marked by pungent and stirring floral aromatics accented by frankincense, leather and smoke. The palate shows a generosity of fruit, but a significant amount of the whole cluster gives this wine savoury edges. Notes of crushed basalt, thyme and wild sumac envelop a core of blue and red fruits. Clove, five-star anise and a hint of cassia bark accompany this wine through its finish, measured in 5-minute intervals.

Drink 2023 - 2035

Clive Pursehouse, Decanter.com (August 2023)

Colour Red

Sweetness Dry

Vintage 2020

Maturity Ready - youthful

Grape List Pinot Noir

Body Medium Bodied

Producer Racines Wines

About this wine

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or. Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.

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