
- 92 pts Wine Advocate92 pts RPWA
- 92 pts Vinous92 pts Vinous
- 92 pts Wine Enthusiast92 pts WE
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2013 Black Kite Cellars Pinot Noir Soberanes Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands 750 ml
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Critics Line Up for Black Kite’s Fabulously Bold Pinot Noir
Gary Pisoni and Gary Franscioni are legends in the Santa Lucia Highlands. To locals, they’re just two farm boys, friends since the age of 4, both from families who have been tilling soil in the area for generations. But wine industry watchers know them as the “wild men” who almost single-handedly put Santa Lucia on the map as one of California’s most spectacular AVAs for Pinot Noir. They’re known as mavericks, even a tad eccentric — back in the day, Pisoni put a bathtub in one of his vineyards so he could have a soak while watching his grapes grow!
When it comes to viniculture, their names are synonymous with a meticulousness in growing practices that verges on the compulsive. In 1997, they teamed up to plant Garys’ Vineyard, a 50-acre site exposed to cool Pacific breezes in Monterey County. Wine Enthusiast would later call it one of the top five Pinot Noir vineyards in the country. Now with five vineyards jointly operated, their fruit commands top dollar from a list of wineries that reads like a Who’s Who of Pinot Noir: Kosta Browne, Bernardus, Siduri, Testarossa. In 2013 alone, their newest Soberanes vineyard produced NINE wines in the 92-95 point range from The Wine Advocate.
So when the opportunity arose for Anderson Valley’s Black Kite Winery to source fruit from three rows of the Soberanes Vineyard, a 27-acre rocky-loam site adjacent to the iconic Gary’s Vineyard, it was an easy call. And thanks to the 2013 growing season — a vintage in which berries in Santa Lucia were tiny, with high skin-to-juice ratios, loaded with sugar, yet braced with exquisite acid backbone — the dividends for Black Kite’s single-vineyard Pinot Noir were massive.
Black Kite’s Soberanes Pinot Noir from the 2013 vintage pulled down a rare trifecta of rave reviews from top critics. Wine Enthusiast got things started with 92 points. Vinous chimed in with 92 points as well, praising the wine as “juicy, seamless, and appealingly sweet.” Yet it was Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate that issued the strongest language, also laying on 92 points while singling the release out as “another terrific Pinot Noir” showing “a Russian River-like level of plushness” and calling it “certainly the best wine I’ve tasted from this estate.”
The mild but very dry 2013 growing season proved magical in Santa Lucia Highlands. The Wine Advocate noted that “these latest 2013s might just be the finest wines yet from this windy, cool, yet sunny region.” All of the Garys’ vineyards thrived, with some sites turning out their richest and most powerfully structured Pinot Noirs to date. But perhaps the vintage’s greatest beneficiary was Black Kite winemaker Jeff Gaffner, who crafted a deep, dark, fabulously brooding single-vineyard Pinot Noir that wowed us — and every major critic in the business.
The 2013 Black Kite Pinot Noir Soberanes is brilliant ruby-red. Luscious aromas of cherry, crushed black fruit, cedar spice and tobacco. Explosive out of the gate, filled with a copious mix of sweet red fruit, dried herbs, and mocha, finishing with excellent tension and persistence. Drink now-2023.
Most wines with fruit sourced from the Garys start at $60. Black Kite’s Soberanes Pinot Noir is $55 at the winery and elsewhere. For a few short hours today, WineAccess has gotten the green light to sell it for $36 — that’s 35% off! Given the pedigree of the vineyard and the trio of 92-point scores from Wine Enthusiast, Vinous, and Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, this is the GREATEST BARGAIN of 2013’s exquisite vintage in the Santa Lucia Highlands! Shipping included on 4.