Pinot noir encouraged to embrace dark side

Tyler Eck can see the Pacific Ocean from Bassi Vineyard.

While motorists on Highway 1 speed past Bassi unaware, anyone headed to Avila Beach or Valley might take notice but move along to their destination. Which is exactly what Eck had done until he started to scout locations with his wife, Rachel, for Dunites.

There weren’t any single-vineyard bottlings he knew of from Bassi or Spanish Springs; when he saw what he said are “exceptional plantings,” he signed a contract without doing a tasting.

“We are extremely coastal,” said Eck, who added that Bassi is protected from the first coastal range, yet frost and cold winters let vine dormancy settle in. “There’s lots of marine influence. We get morning fog and afternoon winds. It’s a typical day in the Central Coast where northwest winds blow over ocean. But due to our proximity, these sites stay foggy longer and typically have cooler air temperatures. We have marine-derived, low-nutrient soils. We are on the edge.”

Pinot noir from California and Oregon is on the cusp of greatness. A new wave of farmers and winemakers is pushing the envelope closer and closer to the limits of sites that can be farmed. They’re dialing in their farming, discovering new sites that long have been overlooked, or simply are making amazing wines from storied properties.

Every pinot in this report was tasted in the last 30 days.

From a vineyard 1.6 miles from the Pacific Ocean comes Dunites Bassi Pinot Noir 2018 ($38), on the San Luis Obispo coast. There are pine needles and eucalyptus on the nose and fresh raspberry flavors.

“The vineyard is on a south-facing hillside that’s lined by chaparral bushes and a lot of sage, too,” Eck said. “There’s a series of eucalyptus trees on the property boundaries. The rolling hills and eucalyptus remind me of southern Australia. There are big sycamore trees and creek running through the property, there are live oaks on the hillsides, all the soil is sandstone from the ancient marine seafloor that’s been uplifted. It’s very Central Coast in style, and it’s hidden in plain sight.”

It’s an ambitious project with a portfolio that is even more dynamic, refreshing and impressive than this offering. The envelope for where pinot can be grown, farmed and marketed is being pushed across California and Oregon, which makes it an exciting time to be a fan of the varietal.

With Cattleya, Colombian-born winemaker Bibiana González Rave captured the finest features of Russian River Valley pinot noir.

“I’m a big fan of the Russian River Valley,” she said. “If I ever had a chance to purchase land and develop it, it would be there.”

Cattleya Pinot Noir Cuvee #1 2018 ($55) is a bold pinot with the Russian River Valley’s trademark lush mouthfeel. González Rave walks the fine line between the red fruit of strawberry and raspberry and dips into some darker fruit flavors of blackberry and plum.

“Purity and power are two important markers to me,” González Rave said. “I love texture and tannins and [am] not afraid of them.”

The Alma de Cattleya label featured a 2018 Sonoma County Pinot Noir ($29) that’s loaded with pretty red fruit and great fresh acidity.

“It’s a fun, beautiful wine that can be enjoyed every day to show people how the varietal should taste from Sonoma County,” González Rave said. “I wanted to make a great wine with great acidity and pair it with great food and be very enjoyable.”

Matt Dees isn’t into carpentry or masonry.

But as the winemaker at The Hilt, the Kansas City native who now calls California home has built an exciting wine from the Sta. Rita Hills.

“As a winemaker, you can have sandpaper in one hand and chisel in the other; you can either round the wine out, or hammer it to what you want,” said Dees in a Zoom tasting last week. “We chose the former. We don’t do a lot in the cellar, if we don’t have to. We’ve got a tremendous vineyard, we love it, adore it and treat it with respect, so we don’t need all the bells and whistles in the cellar.”

With The Hilt Estate Pinot Noir 2018 ($45), Dees perfectly captured the tension between red fruit and dark fruit. There’s tannins and acidity that are at play, and the list of flavors that swirl through the glass [is] endless.

“We look for the dark side, the hint of corruption that all great pinots have, you can always stick nose in glass and wonder what that was,” Dees said. “Whether it’s mushroom, roasted meat or it’s funky. All those things make pinot a sensuous thrill ride. [It’s] easy to forget, pinot isn’t just sugar and spice and all things nice.”

“There’s an herbaceous, smoky quality, a gamey saltiness and everything I love about pinot. The way our vineyards play together is so fun. There’s black fruit, black pepper, round, sweet cherry, blood orange, and the feral fruit becomes tannic and black, yet the red fruit is round and supple in texture.”

Farmed on the edge of the Sta. Rita Hills, the Radian and Bentrock vineyards are “edgy and nervous,” Dees said. The wine is spectacular, and as Dees continues to map out the blocks of Rancho Salsipuedes, expect The Hilt to continue on an extraordinary trajectory.

Which is the exact same path pinot noir is on in the New World – it’s an exciting time to be a fan of the varietal, because the possibilities for fun, exciting wines are endless.

• James Nokes has been tasting, touring and collecting in the wine world for several years. Email him at jamesnokes25@yahoo.com.