2016 Bonny Doon, Pinot Noir, Enz Vineyard, Cienega Valley.
The wine coming from this dry farmed old vine vineyard in Lime Kiln Valley on the eastern side of the Gabilan Mountains Range are bursting with natural energy and depth, this site is a special site set on decomposed granite and limestone soils makes for unique and richly flavored bottlings like this beauty of a Pinot Noir from Bonny Doon. Nicknamed “All’s Well that Enz Well” this young and fresh Pinot is gorgeous in detail and wonderfully textured with racy maraschino cherry, pretty floral tones, distilled raspberry and earthy wild plum and home garden mini strawberry fruits along with mineral essences, cinnamon, forest chanterelles, sticky lavender, sweet Thai basil and salty stones. Amazingly well put together already, the French barrels are ghosting into the background and the mouth feel is hedonistically pleasing with an almost creaminess, but it’s the vibrancy and intensity of fruit that charms and seduces here in this lovely wine. Lively acidity lifts this Pinot and holds the lush fruit in check, look for a more classic profile to slowly to emerge with time in the bottle, in fact you can already see elements that can be compared to Nuits Saint-Georges and while tannins are refined and silky there is a lot of potential here. Tasted with a full set of Randall Grahm’s current releases all of which shined, I needed a day of two to reflect on just how good this Enz Vineyard Pinot is, and while it is mainly a Bonny Doon Club wine you can get it at their Davenport tasting room, which I highly recommend you do, it’s great now, but should get even more complex and thrilling in the course of the next 5 to 10 years in bottle. Honestly, this might be one of the best reds by this winery, especially Pinot that they’ve done in recent years, and this vineyard is certainly one of the un-sung heroic sites in the central coast, mostly known for their 92 year old Mourvedre vines, of which I’ve fallen in love with in Ian Brand’s awesome version. Bonny Doon is making some of the best wines ever, there is no resting on his laurels with Randall Grahm and he is continuing his exploration of the un-traditional and weird with fantastic results, it’s a great time to rediscover this winery!
($38 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive

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