2023 Lucia by Pisoni, Pinot Noir “Estate Cuvée” Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, Monterey County.
Coming from exclusively the Pisoni Estate, Garys’ and Soberanes vineyards mostly, the deep ruby robed 2023 Lucia Estate Cuvée Pinot Noir gives a remarkable performance in the glass, delivering dark cherry, wild plum, crushed berry and pomegranate fruits on the sensually vinous medium bodied palate, along with hints of briar, wood toast, baking spices, dark florals and snappy sage notes. Everything folds together nicely here, while there’s a pulse of energy underneath with a lovely velvety feel, but a firm tension, making for a wonderfully balanced, serious and age worthy wine. For Mark Pisoni and his dad Gary, the 2023 vintage was a test of great patience and was somewhat nerve-wracking for how long, slow and cold it was, but fun the end they gave winemaker Jeff Pisoni some incredible grapes and the results are some of my favorite Pisoni wines, especially the Pinots and this wine in particular. For this 2023 the final blend included 41% Pisoni Vineyard, 32% Garys’ Vineyard, 15% Soberanes Vineyard and 12% WindRock Vineyard, the newest of the Pisoni and Francsioni vines in the cool Santa Lucia Highlands. The grapes, with close to 20% whole bunches, were fermented, as the Pisoni’s note, with native yeast and aged in carefully selected French oak barrels, 40% new, for 11 months.
The Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, arguably, as I believe, made famous by Gary Pisoni and his family, and their iconic wines, is part of the western mountains of the Salinas Valley and is now Monterey’s most prized appellation these days. This range faces east, receiving the gentle morning sunshine and enjoys the cold climate conditions from the near by Pacific Ocean. Pisoni says their Southeastern-facing bench lands sits in and above that morning fog and is cooled by coastal breezes funneled in from the deep depths of the Monterey Bay. As mentioned before, Mark Pisoni picks certain vineyard blocks for this wine, with Jeff Pisoni designating particular lots of free-run wine and hand-selected barrels to be devoted to each of the Santa Lucia Highlands cuvées, like this one, with the goal to create an elevated appellation blend. These wines are handcrafted to capture the essence of the cool-climate SLH that the family has been farming since 1982, when Gary Pisoni first staring planting grapes here. The whole Lucia lineup here deserves your attention, with the Pinots taking center stage of course, but I must say the Chardonnays and especially the Syrah offerings are fantastic here at Pisoni, and as I’ve been saying for many years, they are equal to the famed Pinots. As a Monterey native, the Pisoni wines are special and are the benchmarks for the whole region, and so if you really want to see what this area has to offer, I highly recommend starting with this Lucia Estate Cuvée Pinot Noir.
($55 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive