2015 Mindego Ridge Vineyard Pinot Noir

"The 2015 Pinot Noir Mindego Ridge Vineyard is bright, finely sculpted and nuanced, in other words a class Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot. Bright red cherry and plum fruit, sweet floral notes abound, with a good bit of savory intensity from the 35% whole clusters. Specifically, the 2015 strikes a great balance of fruit, aromatic depth and minerality. The 2015 is quite a bit more polished than the first editions off this site has been." - Antonio Galloni, Vinous 94 points
Our winemaking is focused on allowing the unique signature of each vineyard site to be expressed. We ferment all of our Pinot Noir in small lots of between one and two tons. We utilize varying percentages of whole bunches (approximately 25-50%), tailored to each site, and ferment the wines without the addition of yeast. Our maceration period lasts from 10-21 days, often including a short per-fermentation cold soak. We age our Pinot Noir in 3 year air dried French Oak, exclusively from the forest of Chatillon. The wines are pressed in a traditional basket press and allowed to settle before barrelling. The wines spend two winters in barrel and are racked only at bottling.
Mindego Ridge Vineyard, owned and farmed by David and Stacey Gollnick, is located at the western end of Alpine Road. near the town of La Honda. It is a perfectly exposed south facing hillside in a very cool spot. The clay loam over shale soils produces wines of great intensity.