Arnot Roberts Pinot Noir Legan Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains 2016

Lots of silky soft fruit here from Pinot Noir grown at Legan Vineyard well up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was Tom Legan who planted the fields with offshoots from Mount Eden and they thrive perfectly in the sandstone-containing soil and with the cool air from the sea.

The two winemakers Duncan Arnot and Nathan Roberts press the clusters whole and let the wine mature in French oak barrels, but deliberately keep the proportion of new barrels quite far down to let the fruit come to free expression.

Just let it open in the glass. Then the nose reports blackberries, dark plums, pomegranate, forest floor and smoke. The taste revolves elegantly around sour cherries, raspberries, tangerines, nutmeg and white pepper. It's playing! And if you just give it peace and quiet for a few more years, the experience will be even greater, we dare promise.

Vinous
The 2017 Pinot Noir Legan Vineyard is a gorgeous Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir. Vertical in feel, with tremendous fruit richness, the 2017 is so gorgeous today. All the elements come together effortlessly in this super-expressive, inviting Pinot Noir. In 2017, the Legan is especially sensual and silky. Bright red cherry, raspberry, mint, wild flowers and blood orange add brightness to this pretty, nuanced Pinot Noir from Arnot-Roberts. I would give it a few years in bottle to fully come together, but readers will have a hard time exercising that kind of discipline!

You can easily make fantastic wine without being the least bit innovative. That kind of producers the world is quite rich in and we should certainly not be bored of that. But it is the few who create world-class wine and at the same time have the courage to go completely new ways. Choose rare grape varieties. Let the grapes grow under conditions they do not usually thrive under. Go against the flow and produce wines where the alcohol percentage is often around 12 instead of 14-15. Apply a lower proportion of new oak barrels. Such wineries are extremely rare. But the two childhood friends Duncan Arnot and Nathan Roberts belong exactly in that category.

Both grew up in the Napa Valley and have had wine production early in life. Nathan Roberts comes from a cooper family that produces oak barrels for local wineries. And it is Nathan himself who has built all the barrels that Arnot-Roberts uses. Duncan Arnot started out with wine production at an early age and managed to work for Caymus and Kongsgaard, among others, before founding Arnot-Roberts together with Nathan in 2001.

Their focus has always been on small productions of single-field wines on Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignin or Chardonnay. But their pioneering spirit and curiosity have also led them to throw themselves over a range of grapes, which are extremely rare on the edges - for example, Trousseau, Touriga Nacional, Ribolla Gialla, Sylvaner and Green Hungarian. And they do it with some quite impressive results as a result.

They do not own fields themselves, but work very closely with their suppliers, all of whom swear by biodynamic methods. No little too clever tricks here in order to maximize returns. Nature is allowed to do the job unhindered. The setting is repeated in the production itself, where Arnot and Roberts often choose to press the clusters whole and usually only use steel or neutral dishes for the maturation. Clarification or filtration is also one of the rarities.

Arnot-Roberts' style has clearly helped redefine what California wine can do. They are without a doubt among the most progressive California wine makers and the roses from the world's leading wine critics fall in a gentle stream down over them. Even they seem very untouched by all recognition. They just want to make wine as they think it should be and discover new grapes and compositions. Cool with cool on if you ask us.

They produce a total of around 2,000 boxes a year spread over quite a few wines. We have been so lucky to get our hands on a fairly wide selection so that both you and we can pique our curiosity and broaden our horizons. In other words, we have both their Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and the more curious ones.