Laetitia Estate Pinot Noir 2013
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Wilfred
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Wine Enthusiast
Quite ripe raspberry juice, cola, roses and violet candy shows on the nose of this wine from the veteran producer along Highway 101 in southern San Luis Obispo County. The palate offers root beer, cola, cream soda, chocolate-covered cherries and cappuccino elements.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Generous and juicy, ripe cherry fruit sits comfortably at the heart fresh-as-can-be youngster and is enriched by a careful dollop of sweet oak in both scent and taste, if the wine is arguably still a bit gregarious and a little coarse at the edges, its basic balance and sense of depth are quite impressive at the price. Its fruity energy admittedly affords it plenty of appeal even now, but we have every confidence that a few years of smoothing will make a very good thing much better yet.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
No my dear friends, we are not in Burgundy! The delicious 2013 Laetitia Estate Pinot Noir moves the attention from other parts of the globe and brings us right to the beautiful Central Coast. Drawn from the superior Arroyo Grande Valley AVA, this demonstrative wine delivers what it takes to be an excellent Pinot Noir. Enjoy this one with grilled leg of lamb and witness for yourself. By the way, I will always love great Burgundies too. (Tasted: April 23, 2015, San Francisco, CA)
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Since 1982, the Laetitia Vineyard & Winery has produced elegant wines that champion the exceptional character and diversity of the Arroyo Grande Valley AVA. Originally founded by an established French Champagne house, the Laetitia estate carries on in the longstanding traditions of Burgundy and Champagne with a focus on small-lot Pinot Noir and sparkling wines. Valuing legacy, balance, innovation, and sustainable practices from harvest to glass, the Laetitia team works meticulously from vintage to vintage to ensure that every bottle of Laetitia wine is as expressive as the coastal land from which it originates.
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.”
One of the coolest growing areas in California, the Arroyo Grande Valley runs from the southwest to the northeast, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean and is part of the Central Coast AVA. Situated so that cold Pacific Ocean air and fog is allowed to filter into the valley, Arroyo Grande also has an incredibly long growing season. Bud break occurs in February in most years with flowering in May and harvest in late September; the area is classified as cool Mediterranean.
These weather factors combined with the soil types—continental and marine rocks, greywacke, limestone, shale and volcanic—create wines with great concentration and fresh acidity. The cooler end of the valley is perfect for Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and is a good producer of sparkling wines. The warmer, more inland part of the valley is home to some of California’s oldest Zinfandel vines.