2012 Roar, Pinot Noir, Rosella’s Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands.
I’ve been blessed to have met up with the Roar team twice in the last month or so, and was incredibly impressed by the latest offerings from this famous Santa Lucia Highlands winery, but I also got a chance to enjoy a special library selection of their 2012 Rosella’s Pinot Noir, which was showing wonderfully well and proves the aging potential here. The gorgeous ruby/garnet Rosella’s 2012 Pinot Noir shows off a exceptional silken palate with richly smooth layers of black cherry, raspberry, strawberry and Mission fig fruits, along with subtle secondary flavors, a delicate earthiness, dried roses, briery spices, black tea, grilled orange, cola, smoky vanilla and a nice wood shading. This wine, tasted from magnum, gets prettier and prettier in the glass with a graceful medium bodied texture and a stunningly long finish, with the youthful fruit giving way to a refined, perfectly aged, class, making this a seriously rewarding experience. Roar’s current set of 2023 vintage offerings look to be elevated wines, with the Santa Lucia Highlands cuvée Chardonnay, which I reviewed last month, and the Rosella’s Pinot being favorites of mine, along with the Garys’ Pinot Noir, all being wines that have age worthy structures and depth. The Rosella’s Pinot grapes, from vines originally planted in 1996, were all de-stemmed and got a bit of a cold soak before a traditional maceration and fermentation using a carefully selected yeast culture, after which the wine aged for 10 months in French oak with about 65% new wood being employed, as per normal in these single vineyard Pinots.
During a recent tour of the Santa Lucia Highlands I was able to visit the Soberanes and Garys’ with Gary and Adam Franscioni, the owners of Roar, and got a chance to hear about the farming of these Grand Cru sites which are set on sandy loam soils and see cooling Monterey Bay breezes, that gives these wines their distinctive personalities. Roar, founded by the Francsioni family and one of the famous Garys, after the release of their 2000 vintage, who are best known for Pinot Noir, also do a fine selection of Chardonnay snd Rhônes, including Syrah, Viognier and even a micro batch of Grenache. The Roar winery say the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, in Monterey County, benefits from a rare combination of abundant sunshine and a powerful cooling influence from the Monterey Bay’s deep submarine canyon. The daily afternoon winds, reaching up to 25 mph, slow down ripening, enhance phenolic development, and create wines with exceptional depth, balance, and aging potential. Winemaker Scott Shapley has done a fantastic job here over the last decade, but these 2023s are some of my favorites of all time at Roar, as mentioned, with huge potential. The long growing season, free from the threat of fall rains, allows winemakers to achieve optimal ripeness and concentration, while preserving vibrant acidity. All of which have proven true for Roar over the quarter of a century they’ve been making wines, some of the region’s most sought after, and the future looks just as bright for them, as this 2012 demonstrates too, especially after tasting a few of their latest releases.
($75-100 Est. 750ml) 95 Points, grapelive