For winemakers, producing a great Pinot Noir was once akin to flooring a race car through Eau Rouge or eluding a blitz by the ‘85 Chicago Bears. Over the past decade, however, impressive wines from this legendary Burgundian grape have become more common.
Still, Pinot Noir remains a notoriously fickle thing: reluctant to ripen, fragile when handled, all too ready to spoil on the vine and frightened by most weather patterns. So the folks at Six Sigma Ranch and Winery selected the plot for their Pinot Noir vines with great care — just two acres at some 1,800 feet.
“You can see Lake Berryessa from there,” said Jacquelyn Farrington, Six Sigma’s hospitality director. “Cool breezes hit the vineyard year round.”
The climate at that elevation helps produce a vivacious wine. Six Sigma’s 2012 Pinot Noir opens with aromas of strawberries, red currant, cherries on the vine and melon just after being cut. Within this wealth of fruit and berries are more fundamental notes, as if a distant meadow had been soaked by a downpour and was now beginning to dry under the sun.
Pinot Noirs often carry themselves with elegance and charm. This one adds a suggestive wink as it glides across your palate. Along with the easy red fruit and fresh berries there are earthier notes that tingle like a dry spice rub before an herbaceous savor develops and lingers. The finish is long and rich, with hints of the vine.
When the winery first began producing Pinot Noir the results were more robust. But winemaker Matt Hughes backed off the oak, limiting the wine to six months in largely neutral barrels.
“It’s still fuller bodied,” Farrington noted. “He’s an extremely gifted guy.”
Six Sigma is known for Tempranillo, of course. To attempt Pinot Noir in a county where sunshine and heat could send the timid grape into one of its mood swings took a certain amount of nerve. But the results …
Well, Six Sigma’s Pinot Noir belongs alongside any of the storied labels. Of course, since the winery only produce 150 cases a year, it might be difficult to find on those hallowed shelves. So it’s worth a drive out to the ranch.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
