Big huge blustery beautiful dense fruit and oak after a thin light garnet pour.  The pure decadence on this thing is mind-numbing–think RRV in absolute perfumed dense Pinot Noir dessert extraction, back woods blackening and front porch smoke and tar.  Rife with mascarpone and chocolate, heady toasted-almond cherry with a tinge of spirit, the clear amber edge flashes more and more pure Pinot loveliness with each sniff.

Aubaine is a little weird vineyard kinda out by itself in the foothills above Arroyo Grande about halfway in between Santa Maria Valley in Santa Barbara County and Edna Valley in San Luis Obispo county.  Technically in Nipomo, it is one of those vineyards you look at through binoculars and when it appears on a label, you sit up.  I know I have sang the plaudits of several Central Coast vineyard sites for Pinot Noir, but oh man Aubaine gets the nod for pure decadent velvety luxury.

In the mouth, more big nuttiness. Mellow acid and dirt floor follow a nice watery middle of sparkling fruit. Clean and crisp while still oozing dessert and road-tar from all orifices, a nice sharp spicy burn erects itself in the finish, stubbornly toying with the fruit, knocking it down and at once placing it on a pedestal into the 7-Up finish.

2013 TIMBRE WINERY Pinot Noir ‘Guest Star’ Aubaine Vineyard Arroyo Grande Valley San Luis Obispo California 13.4

www.timbrewinery.com