Melville Estate Small Lot Collection Carrie's Pinot Noir, Sta Rita Hills, USA

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The 2009 Pinot Noir Carrie’s is the most overt wine among these Pinots. It shows plenty of intensity, inner palate richness and body. It is also the only Pinot where the alcohol is just a bit noticeable. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2017. Melville is one of the better known properties in Santa Barbara. The estate makes a wide range of wines under the direction of oenologist Greg Brewer, and also sells fruit to a number of other producers. The 2009 Pinot Noirs in particular are standouts. Brewer vinified the Pinots with one-third whole clusters. The 2010 Chardonnays had only recently been bottled and needed quite a bit of air to blow off some of their reductive qualities.Tel. (805) 735-7030; www.melvillewinery.com

Even greater – in fact, one of the best Pinot Noirs I tasted on my tour through the Central Coast – is Melville’s dark ruby/purple-colored 2008 Pinot Noir Carrie’s. Notes of forest floor interwoven with black raspberry, boysenberry, blueberry and sweet cherry, terrific texture, a dense, opulent, full-bodied mouthfeel, and a long finish make for a Pinot Noir that is a prodigious example of the Santa Rita Hills. It should drink well for up to a decade.The Melvilles are a serious viticultural family with an impeccable vineyard and top-notch wines, looked over with some consulting help from the dynamic duo of Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton. This is another impressive line-up from their cool-climate Santa Rita Hills vineyard. The barrel-aged whites, which don’t see a lot of new oak, certainly possess beautiful concentration, intensity, and potential. These wines go through full malolactic and range from a low of 14.4% alcohol for the Verna’s to 15.2% for the Donna’s. I wonder if there is a need for three separate cuvees as they are more similar than dissimilar. Greg Brewer oversees the making of Melville’s Pinots, but although he is an advocate of 100% stems, Melville uses about 33% stems in all their Pinot Noirs. They are aged completely in older neutral French barrels. This is a sensational group of Pinot Noirs that rival, and perhaps in one or two cases, eclipse what Melville accomplished in 2007. As challenging as the 2008 vintage could be, top producers who took immaculate care of their vineyards, while having the restraint to wait and wait for them to achieve perfect phenolic maturity, were able to make superb wines in this irregular vintage. P.S. As you can tell from the prices, these wines represent sensational bargains for wines at this quality level.Tel. (805) 235-7030