Center of Effort Edna Valley Pinot Noir 2012
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Robert
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This is a rich, dense Pinot, with blackberries, sweet cloves, allspice, gingerbread and nutmeg aromas. The palate carries the tune, with dark raspberry, dried strawberry, cranberry sauce and black cherry notes all heavily seasoned by cardamom, pine sap, eucalyptus and sea salt.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Similarly styled, yet slightly more fresh and fruit forward, the 2012 Pinot Noir spent 19 months in 35% new French oak, with the balance in neutral barrels. It gives up impressive currants, spring flowers and underbrush in its medium-bodied, supple and layered palate. The 2011 has a more classical feel, but I love the fruit and purity here. It should be consumed over the coming 3-5 years as well.
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Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.