Clos Pepe Vineyards 2007 Pinot Noir Santa Rita Central Coast

Clos Pepe Vineyards
The nose is quite ripe yet fresh and pretty with aromas of lightly spiced plum and dark Pinot fruit that complement perfectly the textured and attractively concentrated medium plus weight flavors that possess very solid depth and excellent length. This is a balanced, delicious and stylish effort that strikes a middle ground between the light fruit camp and the ultra rich and extracted camp as this is a ripe and dense yet light on its feet and should age beautifully.
Wine Enthusiast
The winemaker rightfully praises this Pinot for having so much fruit at below 14% alcohol. He's right, but there's more to great wine than fruit. The wine is massive in cherries, raspberries and currants, but right now that's about all you get in the way of complexity. Could surprise with some time in the cellar. Score: 88 - Steve Heimoff, July 2009.
Wine Spectator
Intense, with full-blown blackberry, blueberry and wild berry fruit that's juicy and concentrated. Firms up nicely on the finish, suggesting that this needs time. Best from 2010 through 2018. Score: 89 - James Laube, 2009.

Type	Red
Varietal	Pinot Noir
Vintage	2007
Bottle size	750mL
Alcohol content	13.9%
Appellation	California – Central Coast - Santa Rita Hills
Wine Advocate	--
Wine Enthusiast	88
Wine Spectator	89
Other	n/a

The Philosophy

We are non-interventionist winemakers. The real work of winemaking occurs in the vineyard. We have found that growing the grapes and harvesting them at perfect ripeness levels makes winemaking a pleasure. Most technical aspects of winemaking occur when a winemaker has to 'fix' a problem with the fruit: not enough acid, not enough sugar, etc. We believe that micro-managing the vineyard and picking the fruit at optimal ripeness makes our work in the cellar easy.

Freshly picked, cool bins of fruit are delivered to the winery in the morning. Pinot Noir is crushed cold into small open-top fermenters and allowed to 'cold soak' for 2-3 days. Once the native yeasts begin to warm the grape/juice combination (called 'must'), we inoculate with RC-212 yeast. We use between 25% to 50% new French oak, mostly from Allier, Bertranges, and Troncais forests. We change the percentage of 'new' oak depending on the intensity and yield of any vintage's crop.