MAGNUM - 2017 Hirsch 'Raschen Ridge' Estate Pinot Noir
The 2017 vintage gifted us with wines of elegance and delicate structure. The Pinot Noirs are earthy and red fruited, and have a dynamic old school quality, balancing ripeness and tannin. Less tannic than other vintages, they are showing well young.
Made from the highest elevation vineyards at Hirsch, the 2017 Raschen Ridge Estate Pinot Noir is a wine of electric, kinetic expressiveness. Highly perfumed with red fruit and earth tones, the palate is generous and refined. Drinkable and expressive now, it will gain from a few years in the cellar.
Terroir is within the site; we do not impose it. Our responsibility is to listen and be ready when it shows itself.
The Raschen Ridge Estate Pinot Noir is the result of this observation and patience. Year after year we tasted these blocks, confirming that indeed, this was a singular expression within the Hirsch Vineyard that should be bottled on its own. Finally in 2014 we made the first vintage of this wine.
Sititng at the highest elevation at Hirsch, the Raschen Ridge is where our marine, riverine and continental climates meet, merging heat & coolness, moisture and dryness, uplift and erosion. The wine is itself an exercise in resolved opposites: sexy and serious, drinkable and age-worthy, for both the hedonist and the collector.
Henry Raschen (1854–1937) was a painter of the American West who lived on the ranch that is now Hirsch Vineyards. Old-timers called our ranch the Raschen Place, and Henry’s house stood here until 1954.