2022 Ancien, Pinot Noir, Jouissance, Russian River Valley AVA, Sonoma County.
Coming from a small family vineyard in the Russian River Valley, Ancien’s Jouillence Pinot Noir is a gorgeous, ripe and silky dark garnet/ruby wine with beautiful depth of fruit including rich black cherry, wild plum, raspberry and strawberry on the medium/full palate, along with well judged oak framing, rose petals, cinnamon, Earl Grey tea, briar spice and subtle blood orange. This wine is very much in the same vein as top Sonoma Coast and Russian River producers, with a similar feel to labels made by Peay, Cattleya, Peter Michael, Aubert and Occidental (Steve Kistler) to name a few. Winemaker Ken Bernards fermented this Jouissance Pinot Noir in one ton, open-top tanks after filling by gravity and employed, what the winery says was a warm fermentation with a combination of native and isolated Burgundian yeasts that produced they add what was an excellent and focused flavor extraction, complemented with traditional punch-downs by hand. The wine was aged entirely in Francois Freres cooperage, with about 40% new, and it was racked once, gently, prior to bottling. Only 151 cases were made of the Ancien Jouissance Pinot Noir
Ken Bernards started Ancien Wines in 1992, it is a small boutique, mainly Pinot Noir producer, hand crafting around 5,000 cases a year, once based at the historic Haynes Vineyard in Coombsville, east of the city of Napa, that sources grapes from top sites throughout California. Ken grew up in Oregon, and says he was impressed by the handful of pioneers who embraced the challenging and romanticized Pinot Noir grape even while very little wine culture existed at the time. Bernards says an evolving interest in wine led him to work his first harvest in Napa Valley in 1986, while still pursuing his degree in chemistry at Oregon State University. Bernards explains that his Jouissence Pinot was sourced from vines in a single vineyard established and farmed by Mark Lingenfelder at his home estate with primary clones 667 and Pommard used in this vintage. Ken makes note that Mark’s decades of experience as a vineyard manager and consulting viticulturalist have provided him the depth of experience to reach the pinnacle of grape growing at his own property, which he pretty much farms by himself. Even though difficult, the small yielding 2022 vintage shows off loads of concentration and structure in the glass, with this Pinot Noir being highly expressive and it should develop nicely over the next 3 to 5 years.
($58 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive