Clear, light and transparent, beautiful amber-garnet at the rim. SOOOO ridiculously packed with ripe fruit in the nose: a full cherry-plum blast edged with glorious barnyard funk and rotund spice. Literally dessert-like, the kind of Pinot expression calving off this thing is mind-boggling in intensity. Sharp conifer woodsiness lays perfectly against oak richness, while molasses and balsamic drizzle the briar and berry.

Tasting it clears your head of any over-ripe or flabby expectations: delicate and elegant, a tight capsule of fruit encased in bright acid. But it’s rich. Oh boy is it rich. Cinnamon and nutmeg frame the berry, a floral tea of chamomile and raspberry-leaf provide a salty, savory vegetal bitterness to the middle, elderberry and Aperol applying sweet liqueur salve to the wounds inflicted by pointed blackberry and watermelon. The dirty, dusty layers of shuttered barn in the nose translate to prickly velvet on the palate, the finish so rich, tannin is an afterthought.

This is a speechlessly delicious Pinot. A bit chubby, round to the arguable point of rubenesque, not something I would recommend aging for a decade+, but who could keep it around that long??? Cola and lilikoi and the kind of unctuous gravitas certain versions of this variety manage to translate cleanly and directly onto the tongue are not exactly rare in Santa Barbara County, but here is a shining example. Stony and delightful, the fruit dripping off it in toe-curling manner, a heady offering from Presqu’ile.

2017 TIMBRE WINERY ‘The Headliner’ Pinot Noir Presqu’ile Vyd SMV SBC 14.1

https://www.timbrewinery.com/