Grapelive Wine of the Week

By Kerry Winslow

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2007 School House Pinot Noir Spring Mountain Estate, Napa Valley.
This is the 50th anniversary release of this unique Napa hillside Pinot Noir, it comes from vines that are claimed to be DRC cuttings smuggled to Napa and planted way up on Spring Mountain, from Vosne-Romanee to Napa Valley with stolen love, this story has gained traction in recent years as the wine has reached more and more critics and experts, regardless these dry-farmed old vines made a wonderful and complex wine that it a must have with serious Pinot lovers, like the Pisoni wines which also have the claim of coming from DRC, though Gary says he bootlegged vine cuttings from La Tache! Legend aside, Robert Foley has again produced a deep and complex Pinot Noir from this tiny estate. The 2007 vintage was fantastic for quality, but they only got half the amount of grapes, because of severe yields, down more than half from 2005 and 2006!
($70-90 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive


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