Clendenen Family Rancho La Cuna Santa Maria Pinot Noir 2017 750ml

The Clendenen Family Pinots are not simple fruit bombs. There is so much more going on, so many varied flavors all in one wine. This well structured Pinot shows aromas of cherry, plum, root beer, black tea, cola, and mocha that are joined on the palate by flavors of clove, tea and spicy sausage. It is a rich wine, and the richness carries through to the finish.

WINEMAKER NOTES: All of our Pinot Noir is hand-picked, and processed soon after harvest. Rancho La Cuna is in Los Alamos, 10 miles southwest of our facility, just a few minutes up Palmer Canyon Road. The grapes arrive at the winery cool and are processed cool and slowly fermented.  The fermenters are manually punched down at least two times per day. We prefer manual punch downs to gently extract all the good stuff from the grapes. After fermentation, the wine are aged in 100% new Francois Frères french oak barrels for 24 months, then bottled without filtration. This wine has a few years of bottle age, and it should continue to age gracefully for an additional ten.

92+ Points Wine Enthusiast: Quite light in the glass, this bottling from Jim Clendenen's home ranch hits the nose with baked cherry, vanilla, mushroom and flinty struck stone aromas. There's a quick tension to the sip, where brisk raspberry, oak smoke and bay leaf ride a fine structure. — Matt Kettmann