Medium garnet. Huge roiling funky nose cranking sweaty horse and barnyard and the dirty musky filth of gutter coursing beautiful cinnamon and nutmeg highways destined for luxurious heydays along the water muddled with crazy-ripe stone-fruit and effervescent frosting. The intense dusty pear and orchard soil do not need introduction, no: they assault you with dripping intensity and green peat.
I’ve preached for years that quality sparkling wine producers almost ALWAYS make a solid Pinot and have enjoyed MANY but this is probably the finest example of this theorem I have experienced in my life. Caraccioli makes the best bubbly in the US right now, and their Pinot is a stunning SLH endeavor.
In the mouth, plum and raspberry burn acidic memory on your tongue, full and ripe and toying with flabby but never quite reaching an over-stuffed vocabulary. Gunpowder black tea curls in, creating a bed of richness on one point California-overwhelming but on another briary-green and Burgundian. Thin while clairvoyant to clawing extremes, white-pepper tannins boldly dry everything out to a bitter beauty.
2016 CARACCIOLI CELLARS Pinot Noir Escolle VYD Santa Lucia Highlands Monterey County 13.5
Stephen McConnell 