2023 Estate Vineyard, Etzel Block Pinot Noir

The Block: In the spring of 2000 we took over the farming of what is now our Estate Vineyard from Autumn Wind Winery and Vineyard. The vineyard was in, let’s say, an interesting state back then. No soil maintenance had ever been done in a region where it is critical to vine health, some vines were still trellised on a Geneva Double Curtain system and who knows what the style of farming was like. There are 2 sections within the East Etzel Block as we interplanted rows in this block the year after we arrived. The rows were still 12 feet apart and we wanted to have tighter spacing so Dijon 114 was interplanted to make more efficient use of the land. We named the block as such because the original section of this block was planted in 1986 slopes to the northwest directly toward our neighbor Beaux Freres. The name is an homage to the original owner and winemaker: Mike Etzel. This wine has always pulled some of the most interesting characteristics out of the site and that is its reason for existing on its own. For some reason this has always been the most nuanced and most mineral-driven of all our wines.

Farming Practices: We have done the management of this property internally since we purchased it in 2000 with the exception of 2014 and 2015 when Sterling Fox’s management service did the work. Also, at that time, the vineyard was switched entirely to organic farming practices and remains so to this day. The vineyard has always been dry farmed.

Picking Dates, Tonnages, Tons/Acre: Both the Dijon 114 of which there was 5.5 tons (3.53 tons/acre) and the Pommard, of which there was 1.21 tons (1.55 tons/acre) were picked on September 14.

Vinification: All of the grapes of both clones were 100% destemmed into 1.75-ton open-top fermenters and went through a standard cold soak of about 5 days before being pigeaged 1x/day, pressed, and allowed to settle for 3 days.

Winemaking: All barrels were on full lees until assemblage for bottling. Bottled without fining or filtration.

Barrels: This 16-barrel bottling consists of 12 barrels of Dijon 114 and all 4 of the Pommard barrels. The wine consists of both 4 new barrels, 4 once-used barrels and 8 neutral barrels. Wine was in barrel until late August allowing for around 11 months in barrel.

Notes: This bottling has been a perennial favorite since its inaugural bottling in 2003. There is a distinct animal and mineral character to this wine vintage after vintage. These flavor characteristics work with the surprisingly dark fruit profile to create a wine that is dense, structured and powerful without being heavy or forceful. This is a very confident and sturdy wine, much like the person it is named after. This wine has shown excellent aging and development in past vintages and this should be no different. If anything, this is a wine that will easily cruise through its first decade without a lot of change from its initial state. The wine finished with numbers of a TA of 5.3, a pH of 3.53, a free sulfur level below 35 ppm and a total sulfur below 80 ppm.

Tasting Note: Please be aware that I loathe to write tasting notes on our wines. Each person has an individual palate and therefore unique experiences with every wine. Also, what a person has tasted in their life and what they enjoy informs them on what a wine is like. If I tell you a wine tastes like cherries and you either have never had a cherry or don’t like cherries what I am saying is irrelevant information. That being said I have been asked to include my thoughts on each wine (since we have so many).

As good as I feel our wines have been over the years and as much as I think we have shown and seen improvements in every aspect of the winemaking, there is a unique character to the quality, intensity and complexity of the 2023 vintage that I believe puts virtually every wine we produced in 2023 over every other bottling of the same wine from any other vintage. The Etzel Block has always shown the brooding power parts this site possess, the minerally/earthy nature of the Ribbon Ridge AVA and an overall darker fruit tone. In 2023 the structure is refined while still having power, the earthiness is a clear, “quartz-y” type of flavor and the Dijon 114’s bright, deep red fruit shines through in a way that it never has previously. This is a wine of great depth and complexity that, based on the long history of extreme age worthiness of its predecessors, should sail through its first 20 years of existence.