Windrun Sta Rita Hills Pinot Noir – Prime Pinot!

A near perfect Saturday Splurge.

100% Pinot Noir from Santa Rita Hills, Santa Ynez Valley, Central Coast of California. The wine was barrel aged for 20 months in 22% new French oak.

Sample submitted for review. The Windrun Sta Rita Hills Pinot Noir has an SRP of $33 (Saturday Splurge) and is available for around $28. Ready to buy? Check your local retailers. Just 359 cases produced.

From the bottle:

This wine represents our 12th limited-production bottling from selected vineyards of coastal California. Each year we select wines that best express the finest characteristics of each varietal. We then offer these wines to you at an outstanding value.

The 2015 Pinot Noir from the Sta. Rita Hills is among the finest vintages in recent memory and exhibits the beautiful complex character of its famous terroir, with dark garnet color, sumptuous mouthfeel, and traces of wild blackberry, earth, and allspice.

14.3% Alcohol

Santa Rita Hills (officially abbreviated as Sta. Rita Hills so as not to step on the toes of the large Chilean wine company) is a renowned cool climate wine region within the larger Santa Ynez Valley AVA. Thanks to its unique geography which allows it to receive cooling influences from the Pacific on three sides, it makes a fabulous spot to grow Pinot Noir. The name “Windrun” even reflects this fact as it is a measure of the flow of cool breezes through a vineyard in the afternoon and evening.

These factors push the price of today’s wine above $20, as is the case with a lot of Pinot Noir. That said, we’re not opposed to spending more if the quality of the wine merits it. We like to call these selections Saturday Splurges (see our other picks in this category here) and today’s wine is a great example to splurge on.

The 2015 Windrun Sta Rita Hills Pinot Noir begins with a classic Pinot aroma done very well — black cherry, cola, licorice and nice touches of baking spice and mint. Tasting the medium to full-bodied wine reveals a wonderful combination of deep, tart, sweet dark berry and cherry fruit plus excellent earthy and dried herbal notes to balance it out. Smooth and savory, this is a heck of a nice example of Pinot Noir. It ends long, dry and grippy with lots of lingering raspberry and cola notes.

Ready to buy? Check your local retailers.