2022 Alfaro Family Vineyards, Pinot Noir, Trout Gulch Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains.
The nicely balanced, aromatic and silky ripe Trout Gulch Pinot Noir is beautiful in the glass with a dark vivid ruby hue and a pretty layering of black cherry, juicy raspberry, plum and cranberry fruits, along with a range of spices, florals, subtle earthiness, mineral notes and a light sense of wood framing. The medium bodied effort continues a long run of high quality and distinctive wines from this exceptional vineyard in the hills above Aptos in the Santa Cruz Mountains that is farmed impeccably by Richard Alfaro. The Alfaro Family Vineyards Trout Gulch Pinot Noir, now made by Richard’s son Ryan Alfaro (Farm Cottage) was hand crafted using traditional winemaking methods, with 100% de-stemmed fruit, seeing a gentle handing of the grapes and a cool temperature maceration and primary fermentation in mostly stainless steel and then aged 10 months in mainly used French oak. The Alfaro Family wines always offer up clean, forward and rewarding profiles, with this one highlighting that style and should drink well for 3 to 5 years at least and I highly recommend it and its sister Chardonnay from this vineyard. The Alfaro’s now own the Trout Gulch Vineyard after years of leasing and farming the vines here, it is a very compelling site with these grapes being very coveted, with the Chardonnay grapes finding their way into some of the most sought after wines in state, like the fabulous single vineyard bottlings by Arnot-Roberts, Kutch and Ceritas.
The Trout Gulch Vineyard, as noted in my previous reviews, was planted back in 1980, it is a 16 acre dry-farmed vineyard that is nestled on a coastal hillside and surrounded by redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Aptos only about four miles from the cold Pacific Ocean. The site, as the winery notes, sits at 750 to 800 feet above sea level and has well-draining sandy loam soils with a touch of clay that adds to the fruit density, while the morning fog and cool air makes for a long growing season and allows for racy acidity. Richard Alfaro has twelve acres at the Trout Gulch Vineyard that is planted to the Robert Young clone of Chardonnay and just four acres planted to Pinot Noir with a heritage set of vines, that has a mix of the Mt. Eden, Pommard and Martini clones. These cool climate terroir and Monterey Bay influenced Trout Gulch wines by Alfaro are absolutely delicious, as are Ryan’s personal label Farm Cottage versions. I usually focus on the Chardonnay from Trout Gulch, but the Pinots are getting better and better with each vintage, with both the Alfaro Family and Farm Cottage, which is more edgy and exotic with lots of whole cluster, labels have enjoyed a nice string of recent releases. Ryan Alfaro has received a well deserved series of accolades and great ratings for his wines, has really grown into his role here after he completed internships in New Zealand and most recently with the iconic Adam Tolmach of Ojai Vineyards, before returning to the family winery. Alfaro is focused on mostly estate grown terroir driven Chardonnay and Pinot offerings, but also do a sublime Gruner Veltliner and a new 100% Malbec bottling, all of which I suggest checking out.
($45 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive