This feels like AV. Pretty sure it’s RRV, but oh man, does it feel like classic AV, like the Husch and Navarro and Lazy Creek stuff of old. It does NOT feel like RRV, who seem to be in a race to plump up their pinots into 99% comfort-levels. Likewise, AV has also gotten the lush-bug of late, and these gritty, briary, rustic-feeling bitter-fests are becoming few and far between. Big, warm, savory nose packed with dense fruit and many cellar-floor feels, the grainy briar visible in bouquet and translates easily onto the palate.

Rich cherry enters the mouth, round but wild, the burn of alcohol visible, but solidified down into crystalline acid drops pegged with mountainous undergrowth and weedy instincts. It goes bitter-sharp mid-palate, turning the whole thing cranberry and pitch before your eyes. Tannin roils the finish, dry mineral fighting off chubby fruit in a battle to the death. But it’s a long, gruesome death: with no clear winner. This thing’s got another decade easy.

2017 ANCIENT OAK CELLARS ‘Alcman’ Pinot Noir Russian River Valley Sonoma 14.4

www.ao.wine/