2012 Iron Horse Vineyards Pinot Noir Estate Green Valley Sonoma County 750 ml

Gorbachev, Reagan, and Iron Horse on Pennsylvania Avenue

Barry Sterling was studying law when he met his wife-to-be, Audrey, at Stanford University. As Audrey would quickly learn, when Barry set his mind to something, it was no use trying to convince him otherwise.

On the weekend Barry Sterling graduated from Stanford Law School — along with classmates and future Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor — he married Audrey, passed the California bar exam, and was inducted into the Army. Shortly after serving in the Judge Advocate General Corps, he founded a law firm in Los Angeles. For his 30th birthday, his wife gave him a trip to France; Barry so loved it he vowed to live there one day. Audrey must have known what would come next.

Eight years later in 1967, the Sterlings moved to France with their young children, Laurence and Joy. Barry became enamored of French wine, particularly the mineral Chardonnays and wildly aromatic Pinot Noirs of Burgundy. He began searching for an estate to buy on the Côte de Beaune or Côte de Nuits, but soon realized that the Burgundians are terriens, and almost irrationally attached to their ground. There were plenty of other buyers, but no sellers.

Audrey suggested they refocus their search on a vineyard property closer to home — in the coolest, foggiest part of the Russian River Valley. In February 1976, the couple drove down Ross Station Road under teeming rain. Convinced they were lost, they nearly turned back, until they crested a knoll in Green Valley and got their first look at 300 acres of undulating hills covered in vines. Two weeks later, Barry purchased the vineyard property that would soon give birth to California’s answer to Grand Cru Champagne. The winery officially opened in October 1979, on Barry’s 50th birthday.

It would be just six years before the reputation of Iron Horse’s fabulously mineral Pinot Noir and Chardonnay spread from Russian River to Pennsylvania Avenue. That fall, at the historic Geneva Summit, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan would toast the beginning of the end of the Cold War with Iron Horse.

While Iron Horse is best known for its sparkling wine, each year the winery crafts just a few thousand cases of an estate-grown Pinot Noir that, both structurally and texturally, is reminiscent of fine Volnay.

But particularly in dry, sun-filled growing seasons, this Pinot Noir not only mimics the elegance and refinement of the Côte de Beaune, but also showcases the juicy, wild-berry concentration more commonly associated with Russian River Valley. Of all the growing seasons of the new millennium, none were so perfectly scripted for Iron Horse as was 2012.

The diverse clonal makeup of those blocks (33% 13/Martini Selection, 33% clone 828, 16% Dijon clones, 13% Pommard 5 clone, and 5% Calera clone) much explains the terrific aromatic complexity. Hand-harvested off of five distinct blocks between September 12th and October 4th. Brilliant ruby. Mouthwatering aromas of cherry, black raspberry, red currant, and sweet spice. Plush and juicy, filled with dark cherry, cola, blackberry, and dried herbs, finishing with the firm acidity that so typifies every wine drawn off this world-class Green Valley property. Drink now-2019.

$50 on release. Half price today — ONLY on WineAccess. 840 bottles are up for grabs.