2016 Rossi Wallace Pinot Noir Napa Valley 750 ml

Antinori's Atlas Peak Pinot, Ric Forman's "Finesse"

Pioneering winemaker Ric Forman (Stony Hill, Sterling, Newton, Inglenook) once crafted one of the most talked-about California Pinots of its time—a wine Robert Parker famously compared to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (a wine that costs roughly $16,500 per bottle in the U.S.). That bottling was the result of a break with convention: Forman did not source his Pinot grapes from the foggy climes of Carneros, instead, he turned to Piero Antinori’s rare Pinot blocks high above the fog line on Atlas Peak.

Forman’s 2016 Rossi Wallace Pinot Noir is a full-bodied, hedonistic beauty drawn from those same unique blocks, and the wine is earning serious raves. Vinous called it “super-polished” and “a model of poise and total finesse,” and “a fabulous value in American Pinot Noir.” Just $29.99 per bottle, from possibly the greatest vintage Napa has seen in half a century.

Ric Forman, famously dubbed “Napa Valley’s first superstar winemaker” by Robert Parker, has always marched to the beat of his own drum. Way back in the late 1970s, Forman built a cult following for Stony Hill by turning out exquisite, high-toned Chardonnays and Rieslings. Then he moved on to Sterling, almost single-handedly lifting the winery out of the doldrums with his bold, finely structured Cabernet Sauvignons. The story was much the same at Newton, Villa Mount Eden, and Inglenook. But only when Forman went out on his own, did he began receiving the accolades he’d long deserved.

In 2013, the ever-restless Forman founded Rossi-Wallace, a project focused on Burgundy varieties that he named in honor of his mother and the mother of his wife, viticulturist Cheryl Emmolo. Instead of seeking out fruit from the predictable cool-climate sites in Carneros or Russian River, Forman’s photographic olfactory memory led him back to the Antinori vineyard on Atlas Peak. All the way back in the fall of 1990, he’d worked with a few tons of small-berry bunches from the site, crafting one of the most talked-about Pinot Noirs of its time, a bottle that Robert Parker famously compared “to a cousin with initials DRC”—as in Domaine de la Romanée-Conti! Twenty-three years later, Forman called Antinori asking for a second shot.

Antinori’s 30-acre Atlas Peak site, which he acquired in the mid-Eighties, had been carved into the mountain by the maverick grape-growing pioneer William Hill. At a glance, the terrain seemed ill-suited for grape growing, with its boulder-filled volcanic soils and frequent risk of spring and fall frost. But Antinori was immediately smitten by property, which reminded him of Tuscany. He dedicated 20 acres to Pinot Noir, which have thrived, largely due to the diurnal temperature shifts that take place over the summer months. The rugged volcanic slopes eke out just a couple tons per acre: small berries no larger than the tip of your little finger.

Since his return to the Antinori property in 2013, Ric Forman has been blessed with one of the finest stretches of vintages in memory—and 2016 looks to be a continuation, if not the pinnacle.

We’ve been hearing from winemakers in Napa that the 2016 vintage is the best since 2012—boasting the same rich-fruited profile as 2013 and 2014, but with the concentration of 2015, supremely balanced by perfect structure and once-in-a-century natural acid levels that call to mind the handful of longest-lived vintages over the last 100 years. And although the 2016 is labeled “Napa Valley” it is 100% Atlas Peak Pinot Noir—from the mountaintop!