Beau Marchais Soberanes Vineyard Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands, USA 2019
VINTAGE : 2019
COUNTRY : USA
REGION/APPELLATION : California, Santa Lucia Highlands, Monterey County
VARIETALS : Pinot Noir
Philippe was the Grenache whisperer and was known as the master of the region’s favored varietal. He produced 15 wines that earned a perfect 100 points from Robert Parker, consulting on a vast array of vintages (for somewhere in the vicinity of 80+ wineries) most focused in his home base of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In 1994 Adam Lee founded Siduri Wines, and 25 years later he has attained a cult-like following and a reputation as one of California’s top winemakers. His pursuit of Pinot Noir perfection has led to long-standing relationships with top growers in premier appellations along the West Coast.
In a zoom tasting held back in late 2020 The Lee-Cambie collaboration genesis, as Adam described it, was that during their trip to Chateauneuf, “we went to enough places that called grenache ‘the pinot noir of Chateaneuf de Pape.’ I began thinking, could we make California pinot noir in the style of Chateaneuf grenache?” Adam brought the idea to Cambie, and the two agreed that Adam would use his incredible fruit sourcing connections to secure choice California grapes, and Cambie would instruct Adam on how to make the wine. They would do the blending together in-person.
And why Beau Marchais? The project is named after a man named Pierre Beaumarchais, a French playwright, inventor, musician, and spywho helped with the foreign financing of the American Revolution by creating a company that smuggled money from the French and Spanish governments across the Pacific and into the Colonies. “We thought it was a great parallel to Philippe helping to make pinot in America. Also, it means ‘the beautiful walk’ in French.”
Philippe’s Tasting Notes: This wine has a Pyrenean cherry color with brilliant velvet tents. The nose is very elegant or we discover notes of bitter orange marmalade combined with wild blackberry jelly. It develops a pretty unctuous mouth where we discover aromas of fresh black plum figs combined with chocolate and coffee beans. The aromas are supported by a spice weft where we find notes of cumin oregano thyme and it also has great complexity a great length, a wine cut by aging.
Pair with: roast beef, steak of kobe beef, turkey stuffed with chestnut, tuna steak in soy sauce.
I loved these wines from barrel last year, and they didn't disappoint from bottle. Starting with the Santa Lucia Highlands release, the 2019 Pinot Noir Soberanes Vineyard has a deep, nuanced yet powerful style that offers impressive black raspberry and red currant fruits to go with lots of spice, loamy soil, spring flower, and earthy forest floor notes. Gorgeously textured on the palate, this medium to full-bodied Pinot has ripe, polished tannins, a great mid-palate, and the fruit and opulence to drink nicely today yet also evolve for a good 7-8 years, if you're so inclined. Jeb Dunnuck 96 points