Domaine de la Côte "Memorious" Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills, 2017

The 2017 Vintage:

The winter of 2017 was punctuated by heavy rains in California. By the end of February, the Santa Rita Hills had fully emerged from a long drought that had characterized the last three vintages.

Spring ensued with mild and even temperatures bringing a typical bud break in early March. Flowering followed the first week of May and moderate temperatures remained until veraison – with only a few days of the summer exceeding the mid-eighties. Our harvest began with the Pied de Cuve on August 21.

The main harvest started on August 25th - about a week later than in 2016 - and concluded on September 2nd. We narrowly escaped the heat spikes of early September that dictated the vintage for much of our region.

In the winery, we continued with our practice of implementing a Pied de Cuve - a traditional, though oft-forgotten winemaking technique useful in cultivating native yeasts and a healthy spontaneous fermentation. Thereafter, we filled our open-top concrete tanks with whole bunches, fermented the wine until dryness and gently pressed the skins. After a short settling of the new wine, the wines were moved to barrels, all from a single cooper, Tonnellerie Ermitage, for fourteen months of elevage before bottling with no fining or filtration.

This Special Wine:

Memorious leads the vintage with its winsome openness. Vivid red fruit meets the nose with aromas of bergamot and cedar. The generous palate follows suit, with resounding flavors of raspberry and plum, complemented first by baking spices and then the distinctive salinity for which this greater hillside is known. This is the wine to open first - but it will continually command a revisit throughout the decade to come.

Perched above the Santa Ynez River, Memorious is immediately downslope from Bloom’s Field. The vineyard bends gently to the southwest, opening its face to the Pacific Ocean and its winds. It rests upon a bedrock of Monterey Shale covered by alluvial deposits; its soils are the heaviest of the domaine—deep brown in color, composed primarily of clay.

Memorious is host to - and consequently, named for - our one acre of Pinot Noir seedlings, planted in 2007. With these seedlings, which are in effect the “memories” of Pinot Noir, we have set out to identify and, over many years to come, cultivate our own genetic selection of one of the world’s greatest grape varieties.