A Primer on the Santa Lucia Highlands

Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the Santa Lucia Highlands.  Even wine reviewers joke it’s our greatest underrated AVA for cool climate pinot noir and chardonnay.  Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir flies under the radar.  Wine production is limited and allocated before it’s even bottled.  Heck, this upcoming harvest I’m lucky to be getting 3 tons of fruit.  My Santa Lucia Highlands pinot consistently outscores my other pinots, garnering consistently excellent scores from multiple publications year after year after year.  The Santa Lucia Highlands is the best AVA you don’t know about…yet.

Maybe Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noirs are unfamiliar because they’re less commonly seen in the marketplace.  In contrast to Sonoma County, which spans 70+ miles north to south, the compact Santa Lucia Highlands AVA measures a mere 18 miles long, 1-3 miles wide. 

And if you want to be an insider, you should know that the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA is pronounced Lu-see-ya, not Lu-chee-ya, as I learned after five years of mispronunciation.  This magical gem of an AVA is located about 30 minutes east of Monterey, CA, on the eastern side of the Santa Lucia Mountain Range, separating the Pacific Ocean from the valley floor.  Wine grapes flourish on the southeastern face of the mountains, overlooking the Salinas River Valley. 

The vineyards are scattered among varying elevations over the valley floor, protected by the mountains from the ocean's most egregious temperature shifts.  Yet Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir nonetheless benefits from the cooling effects of ocean fog and ocean breezes.  The resulting climate is ideal for pinot noir and chardonnay: cool and foggy and windy.

We can get technical about the Santa Lucia Highlands if you wish.  The Blue Grand Canyon pulls a cold jet of Pacific Ocean water into Monterey Bay, which in turn drives a daily cycle of morning fog and fierce afternoon wind.  By afternoon, I mean 1 or 2 pm, like clockwork. 

By fierce, I mean wind that snaps the hat off of your head, slams shut your car doors, and renders an afternoon picnic actively unpleasant.  But can you play bocce?  Nope, not unless you first hose down the bocce court with water, less a wind storm flings the balls right back at you.  But you can’t see anyways, with all that flying dirt, so why bother? 

If the Santa Lucia Highlands winds sound annoying, they are.  That’s why Santa Lucia Highlands wine growers come visit us in Sonoma County to barbecue outdoors.  And that’s why we Sonoma winemakers covet their wine grapes.  But the Santa Lucia Highlands winds are the reason that their grapes are so divine. 

Wind affects wine grapes in myriad ways.  Because the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA is cooled by morning maritime fog, the afternoon wind dries up the moisture pressure, limiting rot & Botrytis.  Wind also thickens up the skins, allowing winemakers to extract more color and flavor, and texture from Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir grapes. 

Wind keeps grapes cool, maintaining acidity, so pinot noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands remains vibrant, bright, and cellar-worthy.  But the intense wind in the Santa Lucia Highlands does one more special trick: it halts photosynthesis. 

Yup, you heard me right.  When the winds blow through the valley at 20+ mph, the grapevines call an audible.  The grape leaves slam shut their stomata windows and quit accumulating sugar for the day.  This sounds rough.  But in reality, this allows for a slow and steady ripening process without heat spikes or sugar spikes.  Acids drop and tannins mature in conjunction with sugar accumulation.  This means that Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir is exceptionally balanced and cellar-worthy.

If you’re already a fan of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir, the names “Pisoni” and “Franscioni” are well known to you.  If not, let’s celebrate Gary Franscioni’s and Gary Pisoni’s tremendous impact on growing wine grapes in the Santa Lucia Highlands. 

In 1997 the two partnered to create the famed Garys' Vineyard which remains a go-to source of top quality pinot noir grapes for many producers.  Furthermore, you're probably familiar with their "side ventures.”  Franscioni is the proprietor of Roar Wines and owns Santa Lucia Highland's other famous grape source, Rosella's Vineyard.  Pisoni is the owner of the equally formidable Pisoni Vineyards.  If you're looking for an explosive wine that exemplifies this area, you won't go wrong with either label.  Since their fruit is allocated, many other lucky winemakers (like me!!) also get to play with their exceptional fruit.

Although I am a Sonoma girl, I have been crafting pinot noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands since our launch in 2008.  You see, Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir ignited my love affair with pinot noir in the first place.  John & Dottie’s domestic pinot noir wine review in the Wall Street Journal first inspired me to seek out and try a Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir. 

It happened to be a Garys’ Vineyard pinot, which was delicious!  Since then, I have been lucky to enjoy many fantastic Santa Lucia Highlands pinots, including my own.  While my pinot palate has expanded over the years, the Santa Lucia Highlands will always remain my first pinot love.  Opening a bottle of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir, from any producer, always seems like a homecoming.

So, what can you expect from a Bruliam Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir?  Pinots from this AVA are usually darker and denser than their Burgundian cousins. 

That's not to say that they are heavy or without finesse, but they tend to have more palate weight, darker fruits, and great savory, complex notes on the nose.  There is absolutely no mistaking a well-made Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir, even if you are a novice wine drinker.  Everything about Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir speaks to site-specificity, terroir, and personality.  Mine showcases terrific texture, sexy smooth on the palate and overflowing with wild berries, exotic spice, fresh herbs, and even mushroom/umami notes.  It’s a food lover’s dream wine.

I sourced my inaugural 2008 Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir grapes from Doctor's Vineyard, located toward the southern end of the AVA, roughly between Garys' mid-valley and Pisoni at the far southern end.  Two years later, Mark Pisoni offered me a teeny allocation from the newly planted Soberanes Vineyard, an extension of the famed Garys’ Vineyard.  In 2010, I crafted my first Soberanes Vineyard pinot noir.  I have been playing there ever since.

I’m honored and delighted to represent the Santa Lucia Highlands.  I remain excited to have access to grapes from the Soberanes Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands and can't wait to share these wines with you.

 

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