2016 The Hilt Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir
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Tasting notes
The 2016 Pinot Noir Estate is the larger production red from this team, yet it certainly gives a good view into the quality coming from the Hilt wines. Black cherries, black raspberries, graphite, peppery herbs, and underbrush notes flow to a medium-bodied, supple, beautifully layered Pinot Noir that has ripe, present tannins, plenty of mid-palate flesh, and remarkable purity. Drink it any time over the coming 7-8 years.
Critic scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
The 2016 Pinot Noir Estate is a powerful, dense wine. Today, the tannins are huge and imposing. Even so, the depth and persistence of the fruit is impossible to miss which gives the wine a decidedly chunky feel. Based on how the 2016 showed from barrel, I have to imagine this is not the best showing for the Estate.
The Hilt's 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills is excellent, wafting from the glass with an exciting bouquet of dark wild berry fruits, licorice, rich soil, rose hip and orange peel. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, bright and expansive, with velvety tannins and a crunchy core of primary fruit, its bright line of acidity carrying through to the mouthwatering finish.
The 2016 Pinot Noir offers striking freshness in its red- and purplish-hued-berry character. Aromatic and silky on the palate and offering terrific overall depth, the wine possesses real density and staying power. Readers will have a hard time keeping their hands off this jewel. Fruit sources are Radian, Sanford & Benedict and Bentrock.
About the producer
The Hilt is the Santa Rita Hills project owned by sports and property mogul billionaire Stan Kroenke, who also owns Screaming Eagle in Napa Valley and the Jonata estate in the California’s Ballard Canyon AVA.