SOLD OUT! Have you all heard that I’m a bit of a Pinot Noir geek? If not, the cat’s out of the bag now, and Anthony Filiberti is making some of my favorite Pinots in all of California.
This is a guy with some serious resume clout; he worked with Lynn Penner-Ashe and Josh Bergstrom in Oregon from 1997-2003, then for a stint at California’s famed Williams Selyem, and now he splits his time between Anthill Farms and Knez.
2012 Knez Pinot Noir Anderson Valley
Silky, sensual, and sensational California Pinot Noir!
SOLD OUT
The Anderson Valley AVA is part of Mendocino County, and the region’s Pinot Noirs are already revered by “insider wine geeks,” but they’ve yet to blow up in terms of price and overwrought press. The magic of Anderson Valley Pinot Noir lies in its higher elevation, hillside vineyards where Pinot is allowed to ripen low and slow and develop its pure fruit, mineral, and forest floor aromas and flavors.
This is a wine that lives up to all of that talk. Composed of grapes from two of the region’s “Grand Cru” vineyard sites, Cerise and Demuth, this is finely etched Pinot Noir with just a bit of fat on its bones. Peter and Heidi Knez purchased these two enviable vineyard sites in 2007 and after tasting through several vintages of Filiberti’s Anthill Farms Demuth and Abbey Harris Vineyard (next door) Pinots, they were determined to have him steward their vineyard and make the wines. Anthony took over operations at the winery in 2009, and he continues to steer the ship at this small production, boutique winery.
Jon Bonné, head wine writer at the San Francisco Chronicle and author of “The New California Wine” called this wine “flat-out gulpable. Subtle, shaded in its flavors, with bright raspberry, mandarin peel, toasted cardamom and mineral intensity from the ripe vintage, a signature of the best hillside plantings.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself! This stuff is just plain delicious and the warmth of the 2012 vintage has yielded a wine with ripe fruit and great acidity. In case you were wondering, it scored 90+ points with all of the major writers (Antonio Galloni, Stephen Tanzer, and others).
Josh Spurling
Owner, Operator, Wine Monger
Table Wine Asheville