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: 2016 Rhys Vineyards "Alesia" Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

2016 Rhys Vineyards "Alesia" Anderson Valley Pinot Noir (Elsewhere $40)

SKU #1345874 91 points Wine Advocate

Outer quote mark The 2016 Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley is unabashedly delicious, bursting with fragrant aromas of dried flowers, raspberries, wild plums and sweet forest floor. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, supple and satiny, with a juicy core of succulent, mouthwatering fruit that's framed by melting tannins. This bottling is already expressive, and I'd expect it to drink well for a decade, perhaps more. Note that this vintage hails entirely from Kevin Harvey's Bearwallow Vineyard...beginning with the 2016 vintage, appellation wines will no longer be produced under the Rhys Vineyards label, which henceforth will be reserved for vineyard-designate wines. Instead, Harvey's Alesia label, formerly used for wines from purchased fruit, is being re-introduced as a home for appellation wines--even though these wines will now be produced entirely from estate-grown fruit. (WK) Inner quote mark (5/2018)

90 points Burghound

Outer quote mark A distinctly airy, floral and very pretty nose offers up mostly aromas from the red side of the fruit spectrum introduces delicious, refined and well-detailed middle weight flavors that possess a lovely sense of underlying tension that also suffuses the dusty and mildly austere finale that is fairly tightly wound but not so much that this couldn’t be enjoyed after a few years of cellaring. I like the delivery and this should age well. Inner quote mark (4/2019)

90 points Jeb Dunnuck

Outer quote mark The Pinot Noirs start with the 2016 Pinot Noir Anderson Valley Alesia, which comes all from the Bearwallow Vineyard in Anderson Valley. Offering up a darker style in its pomegranate, cherries, leafy herbs, and underbrush aromatics, it’s medium-bodied, has plenty of density and oomph on the palate, ripe tannins, and a great finish. It’s a great introduction into the wines of this estate. Inner quote mark (2/2019)

90 points John Gilman

Outer quote mark The 2016 Pinot Noir 'Anderson Valley' bottling from Alesia is really a lovely bottle, offering up bright, sappy fruit, coupled to excellent soil tones on both the nose and palate. The classy bouquet offers up scents of black cherries, pomegranate, a touch of cola, fresh herb tones, woodsmoke and a fine signature of dark soil elements. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and nicely plump at the core, with lovely focus and grip and impressive inner tension on the long and nascently complex finish. This is made from younger vine fruit in the estate vineyards now and shows the lightness of step of all the Rhys pinots and is quite refined in its octane, coming in at 12.9 percent. Fine, fine juice. 90+ Inner quote mark (8/2018)

K&L Notes

The Alesia label at Rhys Vineyards has made a re-appearance with an attractively priced Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the 2016 vintage. In years past as Rhys Vineyards waited for new plantings at their estate vineyards to come into production, they had reserved the Alesia label to bottle wines made from purchased fruit. But this 2016 Anderson Valley bottling is made entirely from estate vines that could one day be bottled as Rhys' Bearwallow Vineyard.

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2016 Rhys Vineyards "Alesia" Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

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Additional Information:

Varietal:

Pinot Noir

- One of France's most legendary grapes and the grape that earned Burgundy its reputation. The parent of varietals like Pinot Gris/Grigio and Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir is blue to violet to indigo in color with relatively thin skins, and it is said to have been cultivated in France for more than 2,000 years. At its best, Pinot Noir creates elegant wines that are filled with primary red fruit aromas and flavors while young, revealing with an array of secondary characteristics like earth, smoke, violet, truffle and game with age. The varietal is also known, perhaps better than any, for its ability to translate terroir, or a sense of place. While the best Pinot Noir still comes from Burgundy, it is being produced with increasing success in cooler climates around the world. In France, it is part of the trifecta of grapes that can go into Champagne, and it is also grown in Alsace, Irancy, Jura, Savoie, Lorraine and Sancerre. Outside of France it is produced under the names Pinot Nero and Blauburgunder in Italy's mountainous regions, as Spätburgunder in Germany and as Blauburgunder in Austria. In the US, Pinot Noir has found suitable growing conditions in the cooler parts of California, including Carneros, the Russian River Valley, the Anderson Valley, the Sonoma Coast, Monterey County, the Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Barbara County, as well as in Oregon's Willamette Valley. In recent years, New Zealand has demonstrated its ability to interpret this hard-to-grow varietal, with successful bottlings coming from careful and attentive growers in Central Otago, Martinborough and Canterbury. Chile is also an up-and-coming region for Pinot Noir, creating fresh, fruit-forward, early-drinking and affordable Pinots from the coastal Casablanca Valley and the Limari Valley.

Country:

United States

- When people consider domestic wine, they normally think about the state of California. The fine viticultural Region within California, including the Napa Valley, Sonoma, Santa Cruz Mountains, Mendocino and Santa Barbara, are capable of growing grapes of world-class quality. But there's plenty of fabulous wine coming from other states, too. Oregon, Washington and New York are also causing eyebrows (and glassware) to be raised around the world.

Sub-Region:

California

- With the explosive growth that California's wine industry has seen the past several years, it's easy to view winemaking and grape growing in the Golden State as a recent phenomenon. And while it's true that California's viticultural history is brief compared to several European countries, this state's roots date back well over 200 years. Due to the enormous response to California wine within the United States and worldwide, there are thousands of excellent and diverse wines being produced within the state each year.

Specific Appellation:

Anderson Valley/Mendocino

- Cooled by the nearby ocean and the seemingly omnipresent bank of oceanic fog, this picturesque wine region is home to a wealth of cool-climate grapes like riesling and gewürztraminer plus chardonnay and pinor noir, which are responsible for impressive and intense sparkling wines.