Wine Each Week – 2019 Lucy Rosé of Pinot Noir

It’s not that the names Santa Lucia Highlands and Pisoni are synonymous, but it’s really close. Gary Pisoni began planting grapes back in 1972 when few vineyards even existed in Monterey County. Now they are one of the leaders of quality wines from this region.

The 2019 Lucy is a Rosé made from Pinot Noir from several of their vineyard sites. There are light notes of strawberry, guava, orange peel, rose water, a very muted lemon-lime quality and white peach. There’s a moderate acidity and an ethereal sense of fresh air and salt water from the Monterey Bay, nearby. Though this wine has been around for a decade, it’s not been promoted much, and also less known is that for each bottle purchase $1 goes to breast cancer research.

1,215 cases

ORIGIN: Monterey, California

ALCOHOL: 13.9%

PRICE: $19 (750ML)

SCORE: 90 POINTS

LUCYWINES

Wine Each Week – Roar 2017 Chardonnay SLH

ROAR launched their first wines in 2001 with a focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from higher altitude plantings along the eastern slope of the Santa Lucia Mountains overlooking the Salinas Valley. Their 2017 Chard not only provides a smooth, velvety viscosity, but there is lovely subtle and light notes of guava, white peach, honeydew melon, lime Kiefer, butterscotch, lemon verbena, caramel, browned butter, sweet dogwood, and Werther’s Originals. A comprehensive acidity fleshes out the experience. Using three clones including 96 – which typically translates to a more texture driven wine - they utilize multiple sources of French oak including Cadus, Latour, and Francois Feres to add deftly nuanced oak. This is one of those Chardonnays that works perfectly by itself or with food. Either way it drinks well. 303 cases.

ORIGIN: Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterey, California

ALCOHOL: 14.5%

PRICE: $35/ 750ML

SCORE: 92 POINTS

ROAR

Wine Each Week – McIntyre 2018 Rose’ of Pinot Noir

Imagine you have 12,000 acres of vines you are responsible for. For Steve McIntyre he has either planted for currently farms this massive amount of vineyards in Monterey, so as a viticulturist, he knows a thing or two. Oh, and he also makes his own wines – wine that typically presents a more restrained approach stylistically, rather than over the top fruit and oak. Case in point: his rose’ offers bright, fresh strawberry, guava, red cherry, lime, mango and lemon notes accompanied by a light, clean acidity. It avoids the RS (residual sugar) that is prevalent in so many California Rose’, and is really designed for food, not as a cocktail for warm summer days. Farmed according to SIP Certified standards (Sustainability in Practice) also makes this appealing. After all, farming anything consciously is simply being a good steward of the land, and Steve has a lot of land under his purview.

ORIGIN: Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterey, California

ALCOHOL: 13.1%

PRICE: $24/ 750ML

SCORE: 90 POINTS 

McIntyreVineyards

Wine Each Week: 2017 Wrath EX Unoaked Chardonnay

No doubt you’re not familiar with San Saba Vineyard up in Monterey County, but this little vineyard has been producing stellar fruit for decades. Under the umbrella Wrath Wines label, I first covered them in my 2010 travel book, Santa Barbara & The Central Coast. They have re-worked their Ex Anima label, morphing to simply EX and you’re going to need to find these wines (they have tasting rooms in both  Soledad off Highway 101 and in Carmel). What’s immediately apparent on this Chardonnay is a vitality, a freshness you encounter from the first sip. Guava, pineapple, tropical fruits, lemon-lime, orange zest, and Red Delicious apple all conspire to make a bright, clean and refreshing wine. As the name suggests, there’s no oak treatment. These are 35 year old vines (Clone 4 for the wine geeks) and are sustainably farmed under the SIP Certified Program, insuring that you can feel confident of a do no harm mentality to our environment. And at a meager nineteen bucks, you literally cannot go wrong.

ORIGIN: Monterey, California – Santa Lucia Highlands

PRICE: $19/ 750ML / 814 Cases

ALCOHOL: 13.5%

WRATH WINES

Legends of Sleepy Hollow

When Washington Irving wrote his short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820, he couldn’t have known there would be a Sleepy Hollow vineyard all the way across the country in California, which didn’t even exist as a state. And the two Sleepy Hollows could not be more different. California’s Sleepy Hollow in Monterey County is a lush beautiful land populated with grapes at the foot of the Santa Lucia Mountains overlooking the fertile Salinas Valley. Cranes’ Sleepy Hollow is dark, dank, moody and people fear for their safety. Fortunately there’s no fear in the Talbott Vineyards 2013 Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay. This wine is full of apple, apricot, sweet resin, quince, cedar and vanilla. It’s been fermented in the barrel but is not some oaky/buttery bomb that has lost its head. And it straddles that line between mature fruit and caramelized flavors, and yes, it’s under screw cap – and regardless of what you want to think or believe, screw caps protect you, the consumer. This is what Talbott does best, take a scary idea like barrel fermented chardonnay and turn it into a great little story. TALBOTT

ORIGIN: Monterey, Santa Lucia Highlands, California

PRICE:  $42 - 750/ml

ALCOHOL: 14.7%

BOOZEHOUNDZ SCORE:  91 POINTS