2021 Stagiaire ‘Epiphanies in Place’ Ascona Vineyard Pinot Noir, Santa Cruz Mountains, USA

2021 was a big drought year in California. Not the usual amount of growth in the vines. Low yields. Low nutrients in the juices. I was getting shorted on all of my contracts in the first push of the harvest season, so I reached out to grower friends to see if anyone had anything else I could purchase. Literally anything. My friend Ken that takes care of Ascona where I get my Sangiovese for Scales offered me some luxury(pricy) Pinot that was getting picked the next day. I had no say in the pick timing but I was very familiar with the site and his farming and was excited to try my hand with Pinot from a Vineyard I was already connected with.

The fruit came in a bit leaner than I’d normally pick it but visually was beautiful. It started carbonic for 7 days and was then destemmed for another week of maceration. Thinking that I wanted a bit of that bright fruit lift without going fully into the jolly rancher spectrum and I also didn’t want too much stem character on a wine that I anticipated being a bit on the lean side.

All of the Pinot in 21 had sluggish ferments to varying degrees due to the drought. The variety really doesn’t do well with water stress. So the juice in the berries doesnt develop enough nutrients that the yeast need to do their thing. These slow and cool ferments produced really delicate and tense fruit aromatic profiles. Kinda haunting and ethereal.

Sappy and snappy Pinot profile that reminds me of Vini Viti Vinci. Adult Hawaiian fruit punch. – Stagiaire