2016 Dragonette Cellars Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard Sta. Rita Hills 750 ml

The Pinot Noir That Overshadowed Our Four-Star Dinner

On my revelatory trip to Dragonette Cellars in Santa Barbara County, I fell deeply in love with their 2016 Dragonette Radian Vineyard Pinot Noir. This wine goes almost exclusively to their mailing list, other than a few select restaurants. There will be some sommeliers cursing my name when they receive their limited allocation this year, but the wine was too good not to share, so I pleaded with owners John Dragonette and Brandon Sparks-Gillis, until they gave in.

The previous two vintages have racked up 94 and 95 point scores from both Antonio Galloni and Jeb Dunnuck. Given the critically acclaimed quality of the 2016 vintage, boasting a perfectly timed Indian summer, I have no doubt that this wine will exceed that high bar. Our last allocation sold out in no time.

The quality of the fruit from Radian Vineyard is so impressive that the owners of Screaming Eagle bought the site in 2015, but Dragonette still farms their original blocks. Tiny, concentrated berries packed with freshness deliver a mesmerizing Pinot with ethereal aromas of juicy black raspberry, ripe cherry, and exotic spice, with a hint of rose petal. Balletic in form, energetic but muscled with power, it spills over with spicy black fig, black olive, mission fig, and blackberry. It’s elegant and lithe with layers of smooth tannins, radiant acidity, and a long, complex finish. This Pinot is just a baby, and I can’t wait to experience it in 10-15 years.

Ever since tasting a Dragonette Pinot Noir at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York several years ago, I’ve dreamed of visiting the winery in Santa Barbara County. While the cuisine from Blue Hill’s Chef Dan Barber is indeed the stuff of legend—ranked #12 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list—the wine still managed to steal the show that night. A couple days after New Year’s, I finally made the trip south to “one of the most fascinating wineries in the Central Coast,” making “truly world class,” wines—as Vinous founder Antonio Galloni describes Dragonette. I’d go one step further, saying the generosity, precision, and freshness of their wines makes them some of the finest I’ve tasted in recent memory.

When I arrived at the winery I found co-owners and co-winemakers John and Brandon deep in the middle of moving barrels around. The terms “hand-crafted” and “small-production” seem to be bandied about right and left these days, but it isn’t often that you encounter owners personally making the wine and personally doing all the unglamorous cellar work. U2’s “Achtung Baby” was blasting from the speakers—my favorite band—so I didn’t mind waiting until they finished.

By the time we finished the tasting I had convinced the guys to show me Radian vineyard, which sits on the former “Rancho Salsipuedes” (loosely translating to "get out while you can”). Looking out over Radian's unreal vineyard-scape of white crushed rocks—ancient Diatomaceous soils that contain large rocks as light as feathers—it was impossible to miss the similarities this site has to the prized chalky soils of Champagne or the Albariza soils of Jerez. As Radian’s vines struggle in this challenging, cold, and windy site, they produce tiny clusters of small berries, which yield a perfectly fresh, concentrated wine with a racy brightness—never more so than in 2016’s warm, picture-perfect growing season. This is take-your-breath-away good Pinot Noir.

There are some wines you taste and instantly fall in love—this bottle is one of those.

Sincerely,

Vanessa Conlin

Head of Wine