2017 Little Boot Vineyard Pinot Noir
95 points
Wine Enthusiast
This young vineyard has created a lower alcohol, higher acidity wine with lots of power. Maybe we should call it Big Boot! The nose is filled with notes of cherry, violet, mint and cedar. The natural acidity brightens and expands the palate and sets this wine apart from the other Pinots in our single-vineyard line up. This wine is sure to gain depth, roundness and complexity with further aging.
The 2017 growing season began in March with cool temperatures and sustained rainfall,
a welcome development after five years of drought. As the rains cleared, sunny and warm conditions prevailed. Flowering began as usual in May, but foggy and windy days caused incomplete pollination, creating small berries with fewer seeds and reduced crop yields. The upside is that small berries provide great flavor concentration and color. A very warm, beautiful summer advanced the growing season by almost two weeks, accelerating our picking to get the grapes into the winery at ideal ripeness. We started harvest August 18th for our sparkling wine and concluded on September 27th, making 2017 the fastest harvest since 2008. Fortunately, our strong farming relationships allowed for perfectly ripe fruit with excellent chemistry. When the fires broke out in Napa and Sonoma on October 8th, we had (along with 90% of Sonoma vineyards) picked all our grapes. 2017 is proving to be a fine year, producing wines of depth, finesse, focused vineyard character and delicious flavors and aromas.
This is the second single vineyard bottling from this exciting new site located near the town of Occidental. Planted exclusively for Patz & Hall by Charlie Chenoweth, one of the superstar viticulturists of the Sonoma Coast, the combination of Dijon and California Heritage selections of Pinot produce wine of rare energy and detail. Little Boot Vineyard is a cool site, due to its proximity to Bodega Bay, with shallow Goldridge series sandy loam soils.
100% Burgundian French oak barrels (35% new; 65% 1-2-year old)
Bottled without filtration to preserve the wine’s aromas and flavors and enhance aging potential
- Type:
- Red
- Varietal:
- Pinot Noir
- Region:
- California
- Appellation:
- Russian River Valley
- Vintage:
- 2017
- Alcohol:
- 13.5
- Fermentation:
- Multi-yeast fermentations (native yeast, followed by cultured yeast); 10% whole cluster added; 100% malo-lactic fermentation in barrel