2019 Cuesta Pinot Noir, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Bachelder

One of the first vineyards on the Vineland side of the Twenty Mile Bench, Cuesta can be found on the left side of Highway 8 when driving into Vineland from Jordan. You first come across this site on a beautiful, gentle slope just after the road rises out of the hollow. With its soils rich in limestone and silt, the Cuesta (old lake coast) vineyard produces Pinot Noir that is all perfumed, delicious red berries. Charming, but also focused, graphite-laced and gun-flinty, with cherried complexity. Good length, with a fruit-driven, ‘crunchy’ mineral finish. An odd thought: “One of our ‘lighter’ terroirs to watch for surprising ageability!”

Thomas Bachelder