The Wine
At a recent tasting where my staff and I tasted through all of Arcadian's single-vineyard pinots, this was my favorite by a nose. Expresses Winegrower Joe Davis' classic, restrained style but with new-world fruit. Joe is known for his arduous use of grape thinning - both in the vineyards and on the sorting table - discarding any cluster that appears infected, spider webbed, or otherwise tainted. This clean fruit is apparent in the glass, where his minimal racking (just once!) and unfiltered wines are still brilliant and clean. All his wines are made in the same style, so any difference you taste is due to the vineyard variation.
The Vineyard
This wine is from the famed Fiddlestix Vineayard, owned and managed by Kathy Joseph, who has earned her bragging rights with her own Fiddlehead Cellars wines. This vineyard is directly across the street from Sanford & Benedict, a stalwart in its own right, in the Santa Rita Hills appellation.
The back label of this wine describes Joe's first meeting with Kathy - "I first met Kathy Joseph in 1991 at a well-known establishment frequented by Pinot Noir winemakers in McMinnville, Oregon. She was dancing on a table celebrating her passions for Pinot Noir... We became fast friends... In 2001 the opportunity to work with grapes from her new vineyard was a stroke of lucki for me. This is an incredible site, situated in the Santa Rita Hills of Santa Ynez. Planted with multtiple clones on multiple rootsocks and farmed by Jeff Newton, one of the very best in the business, thi may well be the best new Pinot Noir vineyard planted in the nineties."
In Joe's hands, these grapes come into their own, expressing more pinotessence than any wine I've tried from her fruit.
Cheers!
Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant
SKU: AW-PN-FSTX-04