2024 Arnot-Roberts Pinot Noir Peter Martin Ray Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains 750 ml

Arnot-Roberts is one of California’s most important small producers—a winery named Winemakers of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and counted among the most consequential voices in a generation that has reshaped what California wine can be. Founded in 2001 by childhood friends Duncan Arnot Meyers and Nathan Lee Roberts, both raised in the Napa Valley, their focus has always been a single premise: that the job of a winemaker is to get out of the way and let the land speak.

That philosophy is only as good as the land you have access to. Which is why the Peter Martin Ray Vineyard matters. Situated at 1,400 feet on Mt. Eden in the northeastern Santa Cruz Mountains above Saratoga, the site dates to the late 1800s. Pinot Noir was first planted here in the early 1940s—among the earliest such plantings in California—and cuttings from those vines have since informed Pinot Noir plantings throughout the state. A meaningful portion of California’s Pinot Noir heritage traces its roots directly to this hillside.

The vines were replanted in 1979 by Peter Martin Ray, son of legendary California vintner Martin “Rusty” Ray, and remain under family care today. Stake-trained and dry-farmed on severely rocky, nutrient-depleted Franciscan Shale, the site resists abundance at every turn. Yields are tiny not by intervention but by the sheer difficulty of the land—and what comes out of that struggle is concentration and character that cannot be manufactured.

At 1,400 feet, Peter Martin Ray sits above the fog line in a zone of intense diurnal swing that preserves both acidity and complexity. The Santa Cruz Mountains produces Pinot Noir that is cooler, less forgiving, and less fashionable than the Russian River Valley—but no less serious. Altitude, lean soils, and 45-year-old vines create a profile that reads more like mountain Burgundy than California crowd-pleaser. 

The 2024 vintage was fermented with 100% whole clusters, a technique that amplifies the site’s natural lift, fine tannin, and savory depth. It is no accident that Arnot-Roberts wines appear on the lists of Michelin-starred restaurants across the country, including The Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare.