Rising from the valley floor along gently rolling hillsides, the southern exposure provided to this vineyard is a great complement to the naturally perfect soils of Anderson Valley in Mendocino County for growing high quality Pinot Noir. Richard Savoy yearned for the opportunity to get away from his business in San Francisco to a place where he could enjoy a more peaceful surrounding on his time off. He found that in the beautiful surroundings of Anderson Valley. And along with his enjoying the time spent there, he acquired some amazing skills at growing premium quality grapes.

These days he can be found out in the vineyard working with his vineyard manager to insure pruning is being done properly, thinning is done at precisely the correct time and there's someone around insuring the bluejays are not getting more than their fair share of the grapes! His meticulous farming techniques have impressed us more and more with each passing year. And now that some of the newer vines are coming along, we'll have an even bigger choice of clonal selection for our blend.

In the 2002 harvest we combined dijon clones 114, 115, 777, 667, Pommard, Martini and Wadensville to make up our single vineyard wine. By keeping these in small lots during fermentation and barrel aging, we are able to create truly exciting wines. Anderson Valley Pinot Noir exhibits a character that is not generally found in other California Pinot Noir. It exhibits an earthier style, with darker fruit, smoky roasted meats, mushrooms and forest floor, while at the same time giving extremely complex layers within the wines. They tend to be "brooding" Pinots that are reminiscent of Old World wines at their finest.