2014 Olivia Brion Pinot Noir Heron Lake Vineyard Wild Horse Valley 750 ml

500 cases made—we have the last 100

Winemaker David Mahaffey owns two of our favorite insider-wines: Palladian in St. Helena, just below Meadowood resort, abutting Harlan’s sacred vines, and Olivia Brion, a tiny-production Pinot Noir from the Wild Horse Valley AVA. Just 15 minutes east of Napa, Wild Horse Valley fruit is in increasingly high demand, though you almost never see WHV on a front label, and only one winery is in operation there: Heron Lake. Mahaffey is the winemaker and also is the author of the approved AVA petition for WHV. From Heron Lake’s 1,200-foot estate site, Mahaffey keeps for himself 11-acres of Dijon and Pommard clone Pinot grapes, which go into this 2014 Olivia Brion Pinot Noir—a highly sought-after bottling currently on the wine lists at Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc, Farmstead, Mustards, and the CIA at Copia. After resting in barrel an astonishing two winters prior to bottling, it is a microclimate marvel, packed with ripe black fruits, forest floor spices, with chewy tannins and lifted acidity. 500 cases produced, we have the last 100 offered at $29.99 per bottle, with shipping included on 5.

Who is on the short list of those buying up every small-berry cluster from Wild Horse Valley? Stag’s Leap, Newton, Edict, Jayson Pahlmeyer, and Michel Rolland and Jean Hoefliger at Alpha Omega ... and more recently, David Abreu and super-consultant Heidi Barrett.

The terrain here is rugged and mountainous, quite unusual for coastal Pinot Noir and Chardonnay production. Planted at elevations that range from 1,000-2,100 feet on shallow, extremely rocky soils, yields are small. Summertime diurnal-temperature swings flirt with 40 degrees, causing some to call Wild Horse Valley “Napa’s Anderson Valley."

The most sought-after Pinot Noir in WHV comes off the stunning Heron Lake Vineyard at the southern end of the valley. The original 24 acres of vines were first planted by Mahaffey himself at around 1,200 feet in elevation. Down below is Suisun Bay. In the distance, you’re eye-to-eye with the often-snowcapped Sierras.

The summer of 2014 ushered in by the third-consecutive year of drought conditions was a “dream vintage” as decreed by Wine Spectator. The growing season was “exceptionally long” and dry, though early—both bud break came early as did harvest. Still, daytime highs at Heron Lake Vineyard topped 90 degrees, even as the mercury plummeted overnight into the high 40s. It would be the combination of that extreme temperature swing, and the cool maritime breezes off the Pacific that brought Mahaffey’s Pinot Noir to superb phenolic ripeness, with a brilliant undercurrent of chewy, ageworthy tannins.  

Mahaffey is perhaps the absolute best person suited to tame such conditions since after all, he succeeded along with grapegrower John Newmeyer, his co-author, in establishing the AVA because the evidence presented in their arguments showed an undeniable microclimate. Like Carneros, Wild Horse straddles parts of two counties, in the case of the later it’s Napa and Solano Counties. Heron Lake Vineyard is perched on south-east-facing slopes, where exposure to cool westerly winds from San Pablo Bay and from Suisin Bay means vines are exposed to marine breezes, which help to mitigate any heat spikes. In fact, according to the UC Davis heat summation scale, Wild Horse is one of the coolest in the entire Bay Area, falling into Region I. From this unique place, comes this unique and rare, insider California Pinot Noir.