2022 Rhys Vineyards Pinot Noir Skyline Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains 750 ml

Rhys makes some of the greatest Pinots on Earth.  

Legendary critic Jancis Robinson said they produce “some of the most ambitious Pinot Noir being made anywhere in the world.” Bloomberg’s Elin McCoy called Rhys Pinots “the closest yet to a California version of great Burgundy.” 

Antonio Galloni of Vinous spends his life evaluating the world’s greatest wines, and in 2023, he crowned Rhys his Winery of the Year. It was yet another accolade for a winery that has been collecting them since the New York Times’s Eric Asimov proclaimed Rhys to be “among the best American Pinot Noirs” a decade ago.

Rhys started modestly enough: Proprietor Kevin Harvey’s love for Pinot Noir inspired him to plant 35 vines behind his home in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which stand between Silicon Valley and the Pacific. The vines grew to become a quarter acre, producing enough Pinot to vinify in the garage. The idea got even bigger. 

Kevin was convinced his Santa Cruz Mountains home near the San Andreas fault—where colliding tectonic plates have surfaced an incredible range of soils—held unlimited Pinot Noir potential, so he sought out more sites. 

Sitting at up to 2,360 feet of elevation, near the San Andreas fault several miles south of Rhys’s Home Vineyard, the Skyline Vineyard is one of the highest Pinot Noir vineyards in California. That altitude, which puts the site above the fog line, cools the vines while exposing them to a constant supply of sunshine. The shallow, rocky soils make the vines labor, and the vines are crowded together—planted at 2’ by 3’—at almost 7,000 vines per acre.