This is a gorgeously perfumed, medium bodied Pinot, with crowd pleasing notes of Rainier Cherry, wild strawberry and spiced tea. Supple tannins and nicely proportioned texture emerge from the slow cool fermentation, finishing with a touch of earth and truffle.

The 2012 vintage was a warm, beautiful evenly ripening growing season, and although no vintages can ever be described as ‘easy’ this year came as close as it gets.

Vineyard Notes

The 2012 Roma’s Vineyard was a small crop, yielding just over one and a half tons per acre. The rains held out until just after we harvested, and for the first time since 2007 we got to harvest with the sun shining up on Lone Tree Ridge. The struggle each year to just barely pull off the vintage, snatching it from the jaws of late Autumn is thrilling and incredibly rewarding.

The Pommard clone and its thick skin, is a perfect match that with deep Gold Ridge Loam soils on a ridge-top just shy of 2000 feet elevation in the north end of the Anderson Valley, and you have a combination of tension, finesse and depth that is only found in a few places in the world.

As in years past, a Black Bear tore down a section of the fence just days before harvest and gorged itself on two rows of Pinot. To me, it’s always an indication that the fruit has finally reached the peak of flavor.

Given that the Bear could have it’s choice of any of the neighboring vineyards on Lone Tree Ridge, and all of them with higher sugar levels, I find it telling that ours is the only vineyard year after year that it breaks into. The heightened sense of smell and taste of a wild animal on the hunt for the tastiest fruit in the forest is far more accurate than any refractometer!