2016 Birichino, Saint Georges Pinot Noir, Central Coast, California, USA

2016 Birichino, Saint Georges Pinot Noir, Central Coast, California, USA

Product: 20161525854
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2016 Birichino, Saint Georges Pinot Noir, Central Coast, California, USA

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Description

Named after two Georges – Jr and the late Sr – with whom Birichino have worked for over 20 years, this Pinot Noir is made with fruit from various sites. The site owned and farmed by George Jr today (and originally planted for Josh Jensen at Calera) adds a botanical spicy element, while grapes from southern Monterey add a fleshy, juicy note. A touch of fruit from their Lilo site adds – in winemaker John’s words – “class”, and some Antel fruit “for a bit of guts”. Together they make a delicious Pinot – an “honest” wine, as John describes it. With a bright, red-berry fruit profile, the wine has classic New World Pinot perfume. It’s floral and spicy, but with a restraint that is typical of Volnay.
Fiona Hayes, Wine Buyer

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About this WINE

Birichino

Birichino

Birichino, pronounced biri-kino, is a very interesting project.  Founded in Santa Cruz in 2008, and drawing on a combined 35 years making and selling wine in California, France, and Italy, owners and winemakers Alex Krause and John Locke are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness with a particular fondness for varieties that provide enormous pleasure and re-ëstablish a direct connection to the sensual world (at least, that’s what they say).

John worked from 1990 to 2007 with the legendary Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyard, with (the equally legendary) André Ostertag of Domaine Ostertag in Alsace in 1993, and with a host of small producers across Italy and south-western France.  Alex started in 1992 with Randall, worked with John in the cellar, and then escaped to the sales side in the later 90's to eventually serve today as Director of Export Sales for Bonny Doon Vineyard. 

Their Grenache is from a vineyard planted in 1910, with vines on their own roots.   Made with natural yeast fermentation, a bit of whole cluster, and no fining or filtration, from 100 year old vines.

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Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or.

Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.

Because of the thinness of the skins, Pinot Noir wines are lighter in colour, body and tannins. However the best wines have grip, complexity and an intensity of fruit seldom found in wine from other grapes. Young Pinot Noir can smell almost sweet, redolent with freshly crushed raspberries, cherries and redcurrants. When mature, the best wines develop a sensuous, silky mouth feel with the fruit flavours deepening and gamey "sous-bois" nuances emerging.

The best examples are still found in Burgundy, although Pinot Noir`s key role in Champagne should not be forgotten. It is grown throughout the world with notable success in the Carneros and Russian River Valley districts of California, and the Martinborough and Central Otago regions of New Zealand.

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