Pinot Noir "Bohan Dillon" Sonoma Coast 2021

Tasting note

A premiere - the Hirsch Pinot Noir with the black tomcat on the label. Bobe the cat is the ruler of the mice on the remote vineyard high above the Pacific. Jasmine Hirsch has dedicated a Pinot Noir to him, which - alongside her great single-vineyard Pinot Noirs - she sees as a village vineyard in the Burgundian sense. She has succeeded in creating a truly sensual wine with a quiet, cool personality that presents its origins from the Sonoma Coast like the creeping gait of a stalking cat.

Velvety fine and light in refined cashmere-like tannins, barely noticeable, soft and yet present. A subtle hint of wood barrel in the background, dark, profoundly berry red-blue spice on the nose, velvet and silk in the mouth, very skillfully balanced between finesse and the power of the 2020 vintage, which hardly produced any wine because the smoke from the huge fires in California destroyed almost all of Hirsch's wines. The vines here are between 20 and 30 years old, with over 70% of the grapes coming from the legendary Bohan Dillon vineyard and the rest from the historic Hellenthal vineyard, the oldest vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, which is directly adjacent to the Hirsch vineyards. A ravishingly "beautiful" but also serious Pinot Noir that can do everything that the great Hirsch Pinots from Hirsch can do, only a little lighter, more fragrant, velvety and above all more drinkable - and at a pleasing village vineyard price that would make Burgundy's wines pale in comparison to this price-pleasure.