2016 Two Sisters Lindsay’s Pinot Noir

About 2016 Two Sisters Lindsay’s Pinot Noir:

The 2016 Two Sisters Lindsay’s Vineyard Pinot Noir offers a rich and persistent experience on the palate.

Tasting Notes:

This is a fairly rich style, medium to full-bodied, though not over the top. It delivers a charge of superb fruit depth and density with blueberries, plum, Chambord, cola, and roasted coffee beans. The “intense fruit concentration paired with rich toasted French oak makes for a divine combination” as winemaker Dave Frazier’s notes say. A tremendously long finish of massive cherries and raspberries leaves you yearning for more. It has everything you want in a high-end Pinot

Barrel Selection:

Individual lots were racked in 50% new French oak barrels and aged for 18 months

Growing Notes:

The Sta. Rita Hills is one of California’s premier cool-climate AVAs. It is also one of the smaller AVAs with 99% of its territory falling within the larger Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Intersected by the Santa Ynez River, this picturesque region is located between the towns of Buellton and Lompoc in Santa Barbara County. Lindsay’s Vineyard is a rolling site featuring six distinct, limestone-based soil types. As is the norm for Sta. Rita Hills, it is a cool, coastally-influenced site. Lindsay’s is planted to a mix of heritage and heirloom clones carefully matched to the terroir. Driven by lively red and blueberry fruit, with whispers of a briar patch and a touch of wet stone.

Winemaking Notes:

The Pinot Noir grapes were hand-harvested from Lindsay’s Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills. Thee clusters were then de-stemmed with no crushing and the must was cold-soaked in open-top fermenters for four days prior to inoculation. Each tank was manually punched down daily for more extraction. The wine was then transferred to tank for settling after primary fermentation and maceration. Finally, individual lots were racked in 50% new French oak barrels and aged for 18 months

About The Winery:

This wine comes from the Bill Foley empire and is named after his two daughters. In addition to major land holdings that include some incredible vineyard sites, he owns Foley Johnson, Merus, Sebastiani, Chalk Hill, Ferrari-Carano, and nearly a dozen other very successful wineries. He has a wealth of options to source incredible fruit, and that’s on full display here.

Two Sisters wines are named after founders’ Bill and Carol Foley’s daughters – Lindsay and Courtney. The wines come from the best blocks of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Lindsay’s and Courtney’s vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. These limited-production bottlings feature heritage and heirloom clones chosen specifically for their character, flavor profile and compatibility with the terroir of each vineyard block. Grapes are hand-picked in the cool morning to preserve flavors and aromatics. The result of this care and drive for quality result in complex and elegant wines that embody the rarity of the Sta. Rita Hills.

A 460-acre property of which 230 acres are planted to vines, Lindsay’s Vineyard is located on steep, south-facing hillsides with limestone soils—elements of terroir that are essential to Burgundian-style Pinot Noir vintners. Pinot Noir grows at the highest reaches of the ranch, with elevations to 1,000 feet. The vineyard is subdivided into 63 microblocks that are farmed, harvested and vinified separately, which allows a meticulous level of observation and management of the vineyards, and vinification according to the specific requirements of each small block of fruit. A variety of soil types matched to appropriate rootstocks, and a broad array of clonal selections also give the winemaking team the opportunity to make wines of great diversity and character.