PINOT POWERS ON

The 2021 vintage surpasses even the excellent 2019, great news after the weather-challenged 2020

- JAMES MOLESWORTH

The 2019 vintage capped a steady years-long rise for California Pinot Noir by setting a benchmark for quality. It was the perfect convergence of factors, as a generation of winemakers with growing experience took advantage of a maturing and diverse vineyard base under ideal conditions. The 2020 season brought that upward trajectory to a crashing halt, due to the wildfires that plagued harvesttime. Yet the newly released 2021 vintage easily bridges the gap, nudging the bar a notch higher from 2019 and putting Pinot Noir back on track in the Golden State.

The best 2021s not only show the purity and drive of their 2019 counterparts but also feature greater concentration, structure and definition, thanks to a crop of tiny, concentrated, thick-skinned berries that resulted from the season's considerable drought. Although quality is high across the board, the drought also meant that many growers' yields were down 10% to 15%, with some reporting drops of up to 50%.

"Oof," says Chris Hyde, who along with his father Larry farms their eponymous family vineyard in Carneros. "I love the '21s for everything except the yields. We brought in just 1.5 tons per acre across the vineyardour lowest ever."

Since my previous report on Pinot Noir in our Sept. 30, 2022, issue, I have reviewed more than 560 Pinot Noir bottlings via blind tastings at our Napa office. Of those, 28 earn classic ratings of 95 points or higher on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale, while nearly 350 additional wines achieved outstanding scores of 90 to 94 points. It's an impressive performance overall, elevated by the strength of the 2021s, which account for just more than half of the wines under review.