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2019 Pinot Noir
Description
Winemaking Notes
The 2019 vintage started off with copious amounts of rain saturating the soil in late winter, with even more rain lasting through spring. A hot June facilitated vine growth followed by a considerable heat spike in August, pushing the sugars up and allowing the berries to develop ripe flavors. With everything in balance for a beautiful harvest, we hand picked this fruit in the cool early morning hours of September 5-20.
For this vintage of our Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, we blended warmer climate fruit with that grown in a cooler area to create a wine with tension between the rich fruit and lush mouthfeel of a centrally located Russian River vineyard against the bright fruit and racy acidity from the westernmost vineyards. The blend was completed after each different vineyard block was aged separately for 10 months and reached our standard for what a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir should be.
History
Davis Bynum is distinguished as the first winery to produce a single vineyard Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley. The vintage was 1973 and the grapes were from Joe Rochiolis now prized vineyard. Today, our heritage of winemaking lives on through hand-crafted single vineyard wines grown exclusively in the Russian River Valley.
The Vineyards
Davis Bynum Pinot Noir showcases terroir: differences in flavor from distinct sites in the Russian River Valley. Our Russian River Valley Pinot Noir blends the characters of three distinct Russian River Valley neighborhoods and select blocks from the Petaluma Gap to create a wine with richness, balance and complexity. The darker fruit tones, richer mouthfeel and velvety tannins come from fruit grown in the warmer climate of the Santa Rosa Plains with its clay-rich soils underlain by volcanic ash. The fruit grown on the sandy soil of the warm Middle Reach neighborhood on Westside Road add to the spice, floral and red cherry fruit tones. The fruit from vineyards in the much cooler Green Valley neighborhood add fresh blueberry and vibrant acidity from the lauded Goldridge sandy loam soils. And a select piece from our hillside vineyard in the Petaluma Gap, within view of San Pablo Bay, adds racy acidity and briary fruit to the blend.
