2021 La Cruz Vineyard Pinot Noir
2021, California, USA
About the Wine
Our marquee La Cruz Vineyard stretches across our lower-elevation, hillside blocks overlooking Petaluma Valley. It includes plantings the Pommard clone and several Dijon clones like 667, 777, and 828. At Keller Estate, we harvest our fruit at night to ensure that the fruit is cool when it arrives at the winery in the morning. Cool evenings are a signature of the Petaluma Gap, and Northern California in general, even during droughts and most heat spikes. Once at the winery, we de-stem the clusters into whole berries and chill berries for 24 hours to initiate a cold soak period. The fermentations are native yeasts, indigenous to this area, hence our care to farm regeneratively. The backbone of the 2021 La Crus Vineyard Pinot Noir is the Pommard clone, blended with other estate-grown clones like 667, 777, and 828, in our lower-elevation, hillside blocks. The barrels were aged in our cave for 10 months before bottling.
Tasting Notes
2021 La Cruz Vineyard Pinot Noir has deep garnet color with notes of cassis and citrus on the nose. In the mouth, note of black currant are revealed alongside supple, integrated tannins. The wine has a lovely aromatic depth reminiscent of red peppercorns and spiced cake.