Brassfield Estate Winery

Perhaps the best thing to come out of America’s sudden love affair with Pinot Noir is that we’re getting some really good wines from off-the-radar places. This wine is Exhibit A: it comes from Lake County’s High Valley appellation, a remarkably small volcanic declivity above Clear Lake.

Wealthy businessman Jerry Brassfield gave winemaker Kevin Robinson carte blanche to design his own winery, and Robinson has responded by making a slew of sleek wines. This one comes from a block of just three and a half acres of Pinot Noir vines – essentially all the Pinot Noir in High Valley. And it’s surprisingly good.

Focused dark-fruit aromas, almost blueberry in their sweetness, well out of the glass looking for something to engage with. In your mouth, the wine is wonderfully concentrated yet agile enough to find every taste bud you have. The 17 months of French oak aging (and the fact that the wine consists of two modern clones) gives the wine a vanilla layer that integrates sweetly rather than feeling like a veneer, and there's a plush, satiny moment in the mid-palate that made me involuntarily lick my lips. If this wine were made in Russian River, you’d pay twice the fare, which (for now, anyway) is just $23.

Reviewed April 2, 2007 by Thom Elkjer.