2012 Knez, Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley.
Knez is a small boutique, hand crafted project in the cool and beautiful Anderson Valley, with Anthony Filiberti making the wines, he has built quite a reputation as a winemaker after tours at Bergstrom and Penner-Ash in Oregon and being part of the Anthill Farms team. Anthony guides the Knez wines into life, these wines are always delicately detailed and impressive for layered depth and length with beautiful textures and pretty flavors, and this set of 2012 might be the best yet. The entry level cuvee, this 2012 Knez Anderson Valley Pinot, a blend of estate blocks from Cerise and Demuth, plus a touch of their Knez Vineyard, the vines are from a variety of heritage and modern clones, but lean on the old Martini, Pommard, David Bruce and Wadenswil (Swiss Clone) and grown at close to a thousand feet up on mixed soils. This Anderson Valley 2012 is subtle, elegant and slightly shy at first, but opens nicely to a full and succulent Pinot with wilted rose petals, strawberry, wild mushroom, tea spice, anise and raspberry notes to lead, then gathering steam to provide black cherry, tangy plum and currant fruit, along with earth, stones and baking spices, cinnamon and nutmeg with very faint wood expression. The finish is the single most pleasing and stunning element at this point, it goes on forever and is dreamy gorgeous, lingering with layer after layer. Look for this wonderful effort to gain with bottle age, and at this price, you should invest in many a bottle, also keep a sharp eye out for Knez’s single vineyard 2012’s as well. Drink the Anderson Valley cuvee over the next 3 to 5 years, it has lowish/balanced alcohol, good acidity, refined, but firm tannins and fantastic purity of fruit, one of the best values out there, drink from 2014 to 2019.
($35 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive
