2014 Ryan Pinot Noir

The 2014 Pinot Noir Ryan Vineyard offers a darker, Côte de Nuits style in its black cherry, mulberry, sassafras, spring flowers and violet aromatics. These give way to a rich, concentrated, spicy Pinot Noir that has beautiful mid-palate depth (as do all the 2015s), ripe tannin and focused, pure, impeccably balanced style.

The 2014 Pinot Noir Ryan Vineyard is a powerful, bombastic wine with huge fruit and equally imposing tannins that demand patience. Waves of dark, deeply sketched fruit hit the palate in a virile Pinot Noir that is going to need at least several years to truly come into its own. By no means a shy wine, the Ryan also has tremendous potential. In 2014, the Ryan was done with 70% whole clusters, which is a bit lower than normal.

Saturated ruby-black in hue, the 2014 Pinot Noir Ryan Vineyard reveals a rich bouquet of plum preserve, cassis and asphalt, followed by an assertively firm palate that's carrying a significant payload of stem tannin, but which also possesses a deep core of dark, crunchy fruit and concentration. If everything rounds out with time, this will be a magical wine, as its raw materials are impressive, but for now, it's very hard to read. This was harvested between September 4-10—early by the standards of this, Calera's highest-altitude vineyard—and cropped at a tiny yield of 0.81 tons per acre. Apr 2018, www.robertparker.com