WTN: 09 Rhys Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot

Rhys VIneyards 2009 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir. 13.3% ABV. My first experience with Rhys; figured it would be best to try this, rather than a single-vineyard wine. Starts off taut and focused, with a narrow band of intensely concentrated and sappy black cherry fruit and a pleasantly spicy finish; over time, the background broadens into a wide streak of velvety fruit and moderate, well-integrated wood; at first I worry that it's become too soft, but that narrow band of focused flavor remains, now giving the impression of minerality against the primary backdrop. I don't know SCM Pinot at all, really, but this is delicious and distinctive.

[David M. Bueker]

The Rhys appellation pinots are lovely wines. Both the SCM and San Mateo bottlings provide a delicious and more immediately accessible/early maturing version of the Rhys style. With the single vineyard wines I am just starting to see real development in the 2006 vintage - they are aging like Burgundies!

I got this bottle recently, along with some Horseshoe and Skyline Syrah (08), Bearwallow Pinot (13), and Horseshoe and Alpine Chard (12). All the single-vineyard stuff is in deep storage, since they're just singles and pairs. But this is very promising. I also happen to have a bottle of the Mount Eden Estate SCM Pinot that Jenise just wrote a TN on, which I think I'll open soon to try to get a sense of what, in the Rhys, is house style and what's terroir.