There are over 200 vineyards located within the Santa Cruz Mountains — but you’d never know it. With the area’s rocky terrain, steep slopes, and endless forest landscape, sprawling fields are less common than in other major wine regions. But its these mountainous characteristics that give Santa Cruz grapes their signature concentration, the wines a certain rusticity. Here, Pinot Noir leaves behind the coastal climate stereotypes, amending itself to something that can be altogether brawny, tannic, and age-able.
Tag: wine tasting
Ramey Wine Cellars 2014 Platt Vineyard Pinot Noir
In my small wine world, I certainly depend on the kindness of winemakers. I feel honored, privileged, yet altogether humbled by the opportunity to taste an expressive Pinot Noir sourced from the prestigious Platt Vineyard, produced by the renowned David Ramey.
David Ramey is a name known all around our Napa/Sonoma Wine Countries — and I’m sure everywhere else as well. After completing his Masters in enology from UC Davis, David started his young career by traveling abroad to France. He names his first job with Jean-Pierre Moueix in Pomerol and his time cellar-ratting in Burgundy as some of the major highlights and influences of his early winemaking life. Back in California, David moved on to work for such major players as Simi, Matanzas Creek, and Chalk Hill. But it was his decision to become the first winemaker for Dominus Estates (owned by Christian Moueix, of Pétrus) that made him realize all that he had learned and all that he was capable of. “I never dreamed of owning my own winery,” David says. Oh how dreams do change.
In 1996 he and his wife Carla founded Ramey Cellars, after Moueix agrees to let David “make a little Chardonnay on the side.” Sourcing from Hyde Vineyards, the couple celebrates their first harvest, custom crushing at Luna Vineyards, and producing their first 260 cases. Today Ramey Wine Cellars produces Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet, and even a bit of Syrah — producing, well, much more than 260 cases.
Nicolas Jay 2015 Pinot Noir
There’s something special about Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. I can never put my finger on exactly what it is, though. The region spans from coastal-setting to mountain-scape, and you wouldn’t think it would be that different from our Northern Californian Wine Country. But perhaps it’s because most wineries are small, often family-run boutiques; maybe it’s because Oregon, on the whole, is quite a young wine-producing region, unblemished by age, wear, and tear; or it could be because the Willamette, like Burgundy is located at 45 degrees latitude and that’s just the Pinot Noir sweet spot.
Whatever it is, I find that some of the most refined (most Burgundian, if you will) American Pinot Noirs come from this little pocket of the New World.
Miraflores 2014 Estate Viognier
Proprietor Victor Alvarez may have a successful medical practice in Arizona, but that doesn’t stop him from coming to his estate winery in California’s El Dorado County every weekend. And it is this attention to detail that truly defines the Miraflores wines. Alvarez, along with his head winemaker Marco Capelli, practices Old World minimalism in the vineyard and in the winery — keeping each step in the winemaking process as natural as possible, from bud to bottle. 
Narrow Gate 2012 Dunamis Estate GSM
According to Teena Hildebrand, co-owner and winery chef for Narrow Gate Vineyards, the name Dunamis is Greek, sharing the root word for dynamite. It was the couple’s new found faith in Christianity that provoked them to take the leap from the fashion industry to the wine industry. Teena says they first read the word Dunamis in a Greek translation of the New Testament in reference to “God’s miraculous power.” “We needed a lot of ‘Dunamis’ to get our winery doors open back in 2004, as we didn’t come in heavily capitalized or with an inheritance,” says Teena. “We labored ourselves to plant and build.” A labor of love we can now all enjoy.