2023 Pyramid Valley Earth Smoke Pinot Noir

"In other circumstances this wine would command every inch on this page to sing its praises. It’s among the best pinots I’ve tasted all year. A harvest diminished by frost has delivered great complexity, if not quantity. Sour cherries, wild berries and dried porcini, tightening through a fine, granular finish dusted with exotic spice."

"The 2023 Pinot Noir Earth Smoke is tender and transparent, mellow and mouth-filling. Restrained in expression within the context of the New World, it is a little reductive, herbal (with the agave-like flavor of good tequila) and fruity with strawberry and red cherry flavors. The palate is mouthwateringly fresh, with chalky tannins leaving a fine powdery veil. This is pure, satisfying and the essence of its terroir. It does feel rather fragile, and as such, my drinking window is currently set for the next ten years." Drink 2025 - 2035

"Smells like late-summer roses on the cusp of a heavy summer thunderstorm, hot tar simmering in the heat, black-violet sky towering overhead. Tastes like petrichor, like a lick of rain-wet gravel, like bacon smoke and cranberries rubbed on old platinum. The tannins feel like old stained-glass windows in a stone chapel, bending the light through ruby, azure, emerald, honey lead-laced diamonds. A pin-prick of blood on an earth-stained finger, and someone paused to write a word in charcoal on a cold rock, left a rose petal behind. (TC)."