x
  • Country ranking ?

    387
  • Producer ranking ?

    5
  • Decanting time

    2h
  • When to drink

    now to 2030

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The Story

At 2360 feet of elevation, Skyline Vineyard is one of the highest Pinot Noir vineyards in California. This extreme altitude helps cool the vineyard while providing the constant sunshine that is found above the fog. The rocky soils are extremely shallow and make the vines work hard throughout the season. In order to produce a viable crop, the vines are very tightly spaced with Pinot Noir at 2'x3' and Syrah at 4'x3'. We think that Skyline is the...

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Vintage 2009

Napa 2009 Vintage Report   “We consider the vintage 2009 was the start of a three year cooling cycle (2009, 2010, 2011) that ended with the 2012 vintage.  If We look at the big picture of the decade We see warming each year from 2006, 2007 and then 2008.  2009 then started a cooling cycle where the vintages were progressively cooler and wetter. Out of these vintages the 2011 was the coolest and wettest. We are pleased to see the vintage 2012 i...

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

A reserved and notably cooler nose of crystalline purity offers up notes of spicy diverse red berry fruit aromas that complement to perfection the exceptionally elegant and refined medium weight flavors that are shaped and supported by very firm but ripe tannins, all wrapped in a dusty and stunningly long finish. This is a wine of harmony, indeed this strikes me as quite Zen-like as the structure is very fine grained. – Allen Meadows, Burghound.com 94p

  • 94p
Again a 100 percent whole cluster fermented pinot, but this one with a much more aromatic, intense and less spicy nose. At first, it seems to be more concentrated, with a dark fruit body reminiscent of blackberries and dark cherries. The oak, 50 percent new in this case and of the same type as for all wines here – four year air dried oak from the François Frères cooperage company in Saint-Romain in Burgundy – is extremely well integrated, almost invisible. The spicy and earthy notes from the stems, shows only after 30 minutes of aeration, but then only very little. The mayor difference from the Family Farm bottling is the structure. The 1.20 hectare Skyline Vineyard is situated at an altitude of around 700 meters in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where temperatures are lower and the growing conditions much more extreme. The soil is thin and based of sandstone, limestone and mudstone (a type of lime and clay soil), which gives the wine a serious structure and minerality, that gives energy to the taste and lingers for a minute on the tongue. By the way, another great asset of the wine is the low alcohol – not even noted in the taste. It’s only 12.7 percent! “If I would have been a French winemaker in Burgundy, I guess I should have chaptalized the juice”, winemaker Jeff says.
  • 94p
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Information

Origin

Santa Cruz Mountains, California

Vintage Quality

Above Average

Value For Money

Very good

Investment potential

No Potential

Fake factory

None
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