Review: Calera 2016 Reed Vineyard Pinot Noir Mt. Harlan CA ($75)

Recently sold to Duckhorn, Calera is arguably the most iconic Central Coast Pinot Noir brand. The brand was founded by visionary Josh Jensen, who looked far and wide for a cool climate spot with limestone akin to that found in Burgundy. Jensen wound up creating wines that weren't brazen imitations of Burgundy, but wines that stood on their own and were a new California take on Pinot Noir: restrained, structured wines grown on relatively lean soils that gave the wines a genuine sense of place and point of view. Calera's wines have been revered by California wine connoisseurs since the early 1990's, but a fortunate mention in a popular Japanese manga comic book about a sommelier catapulted Calera to fame in Japan in the late 1990's. Calera's wines are still extraordinary, the single vineyard wines quite rare, and certainly not cheap. Only 375 cases of the 2016 Reed Vineyard Pinot Noir were produced. It is made from vine cuttings Jensen brought to the US from Domaine de la Romanee Conti after he worked there and at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy. The vines that made this wine yielded a mere 1 ton per acre (3 to 5 tons per acre is common for many high quality wines. This is delicious. It's savory, fruity and structured at the same time, with sweet summer tomato, raspberry, red currant, blueberry fruit notes and a lovely, citrusy, salty minerality that undergirds everything. Balanced, structured and complex, it's worth the hefty price tag. (95 Points)