2021 Hirsch 'Reserve' Estate Pinot Noir
David Hirsch dreamed for many years of making a Reserve Pinot Noir from his vineyard. Since our first Reserve in 2009, we have endeavored to capture the most complete and powerful expression of the Hirsch Vineyard through selecting our finest and oldest vineyard blocks for this wine.
Lying adjacent to the great San Andreas Fault on the extreme western Sonoma Coast, Hirsch Vineyards is a single vineyard comprised of 61 distinct farming blocks. These blocks cover an area of 72 acres, resulting in a degree of fragmentation that is unmatched even by the famously subdivided vineyards of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits. Each block was individually planted based on its unique combination of soil, exposure and topography, and each is farmed, harvested and vinified separately.
This process enables us to evaluate each farming block separately, and to select only the best barrels from the most expressive vineyard blocks for our Reserve Pinot Noir.
On the nose, the 2021 Reserve is already showing a complex interplay of fruit and savory aromatics. It opens with notes of fresh dark cherries and cassis, with hints of oyster shell and earth. On the palate, the attack is silky and sapid, with a seductive fullness. The tannins are fine-grained, long and impressive. This is a complex, structured wine that will benefit from time in the cellar.