Husch Vineyards

The Husch story just gets better and better. The generation of the Oswald family now in charge, headed by general manager Zac Robinson and winemaker Brad Holstine, has managed to preserve the best qualities of the brand – heritage vineyards and a refusal to follow the bigger-is-better parade that has overrun so much of California winemaking – while modernizing carefully and tastefully. Husch was always better known for its whites than its reds, so the renaissance of recent years reached the whites first. We had to be a little more patient for the reds to show the same development, and now we’re getting the reward.

This wine came from a dozen lots, all from the Husch estate in Anderson Valley. (One lot is from the first Pinot Noir vines planted in the AVA, back before 1970.) Aromatically, the wine emphasizes the traditional red fruits of Pinot Noir: strawberry, rhubarb and red plums, with a really tasty minerally component. The aromas become flavors in your mouth, the texture is raw silk, and the finish is more refined than I can remember in a Husch Pinot. Best of all, this wine tastes of something grown in the earth, not manufactured in a winery. You could drink it with just about anything, and not just because of the flavor profile: it’s only $21 a bottle.

Reviewed April 2, 2007 by Thom Elkjer.