Kutch Pinot Noir Falstaff Vineyard 2021

Jamie Kutch built his reputation on a radical idea for California Pinot Noir: restraint. After leaving a career on Wall Street to make wine, he committed to low alcohol, minimal new oak and a refusal to chase the riper, more extracted style that once defined the category — and Falstaff Vineyard is widely considered his most complete expression of that philosophy. The vineyard sits at the extreme western edge of the Sonoma Coast AVA, just 8.4 miles from the Pacific Ocean on the second inland ridge — planted in 2001, it is the coldest site Kutch works with, with soils of marine quartz sandstone and Goldridge, and berries so small that yields often fall below one ton per acre. The site lies just under the fog line, where the climate is colder than Burgundy. Fruit is crushed and punched down by foot, fermented with native yeast through a 100% whole-cluster primary and native malolactic fermentation, then aged 17 months on the lees in neutral French oak without racking, bottled unfined and unfiltered. 

Moderately dark reddish-purple in the glass, the nose is quite alluring — black cherry, ollalieberry, exotic spice, and savoury notes of wet mulch and underbrush — with a generous charge of black cherry, black raspberry and blackberry flooding the palate, framed by supportive tannins. In cooler vintages it leans more toward wild strawberry, passionfruit, violet and rose petal — pretty, supple and elegant, with rounded tannins, great texture and outstanding length. Spicy red fruit evolves to fleshy raspberry, blood orange and bergamot, with a deep earthiness and a distinct tobacco note adding real complexity, the structure built on mouthwatering acid and moderate tannin.