Hello and welcome to my weekly dig through the pile of wine samples that show up asking to be tasted. I’m pleased to bring you the latest installment of Vinography Unboxed, where I highlight some of the better bottles that have crossed my doorstep recently.
This week included a lot of excellent Pinot Noir, a bunch of them from Mendocino’s Anderson Valley.
Let’s start with the Smith Story Pinot that has charmingly been named The Boonies, after the town of Boonville in Anderson Valley. Smith Story is the label of Alison Smith Story and her husband Eric, and perhaps the first fully crowdfunded winery in America. I knew Ali first as a wine blogger in the early days of the wine blogging scene, and have enjoyed watching their winery and its patron saint, Lord Sandwich the Goldendoodle settle into a groove over time. This particular wine, with a little age on it, is showing beautifully, with lots of tangy fruit and lovely dried herbal notes.
Another winery I’ve watched since its very first moments is Minus Tide, a Mendocino-focused label that has quickly become a gem of a project and a great standard-bearer for Mendocino. Their newest Pinot Noir from the Hacienda Sequoia Vineyard in Anderson Valley has this arboreal quality that is really compelling.
GW Lussier grew up in Napa and began his career in the US military, and then by happenstance ended up with an internship at a winery, and the rest of his life opened up in front of him. Now focused on primarily cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Mendocino, he is one of the newest generation of Anderson Valley winemakers and has a deft touch. His 2022 Pinot from the Golden Fleece vineyard is exceptional.
Winemaker Derek Rohlffs founded his Bravium label in 2007 and since then has leased and now farms the famed Wiley Vineyard in Anderson Valley, where the 2022 Pinot I tasted last week comes from. It has a classic Anderson Valley expression of red fruit and herbs.
One final wine from Anderson Valley, the 2022 Run Dog Vineyard Pinot from Baxter Winery demonstrates why I enjoy Phil Baxter’s wines so much. It’s bursting with flavor and energy and has this quartz-like quality that is very compelling. Baxter trained in Burgundy and brings his experiences there to bear in making wines of great finesse.
Keeping with the Pinot Noir genre for the moment, I’ve got two wines to share from Dutton-Goldfield, one of which is a brand-new wine that I could find no information about. I’ve never heard of the 5 Wells vineyard before, but it’s clearly full of exuberant fruit. The McDougall Vineyard, on the other hand, is one of my favorite Pinot Noir vineyards in California and expresses everything that’s great about California coastal Pinot Noir.
I recently received some new releases from The Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah!, whose proprietor Hardy Wallace made a name for himself re-interpreting California old-vine Mourvèdre under his previous label Dirty & Rowdy. His new project, with its cheeky mouthful of a name, offers several wines focused on Mourvedre, as well as some interesting old-school interpretations of Bordeaux varieties. Hardy’s winemaking leans towards the natural end of the spectrum, but generally, the wines are quite clean and without any funk. His Evangelho Mourvedre is lithe and bright, as is the less-expensive Ancient Groove, which blends in some Carignane with the Mourvedre. Wallace found a very interesting site in the Santa Cruz Mountains for his Bordeaux reds and is about to release his blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, which is quite fine.
Lastly, and certainly not least by a mile, I’m happy to share my thoughts on the 2021 vintage of the iconic Joseph Phelps Insignia. What can I say? It’s an amazing vintage in Napa, and Phelps has delivered its usual top-quality interpretation of a classic Napa red wine. While not super-ripe (the label offers a modest 14.5% alcohol) it’s definitely a brawny, rich expression of Napa…
Source : https://www.vinography.com/2024/10/vinography-unboxed-week-of-10-6-24
