It took California growers a few decades to figure out that just because a certain region or site produced brilliant Cabernet didn't necessarily portend equal success with Pinot. Indeed, by the late 1970s, winemakers and viticulturalists brave—or crazy—enough to give Pinot Noir a serious whirl had finally reached consensus that the very conditions under which this fickle grape performed best couldn't be more different than those under which the likes of Cabernet and Merlot thrived.   More

It took California growers a few decades to figure out that just because a certain region or site produced brilliant Cabernet didn't necessarily portend equal success with Pinot. Indeed, by the late 1970s, winemakers and viticulturalists brave—or crazy—enough to give Pinot Noir a serious whirl had finally reached consensus that the very conditions under which this fickle grape performed best couldn't be more different than those under which the likes of Cabernet and Merlot thrived.

This collective epiphany led California's Pinot pioneers to eschew warm regions and to seek out cool climate sites. The result is that California's most impressive results from this variety tend to issue from a relatively small number of coastal zones where the maritime influence of the cold Pacific keeps a lid on temperatures, thereby permitting the grape to express its intrinsic delicacy and understated allure. Those privileged sites are clustered largely along the (often fog-enshrouded) Sonoma Coast and inland from there into the Russian River Valley; in the Carneros district, stretching across the southern reaches of Napa and Sonoma Counties where cool ocean air is sucked inland from adjacent San Francisco Bay; and along the Central Coast, a nearly 300-mile stretch from Monterey County southward through San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties.

The Golden State's Pinots are best enjoyed on their own terms rather than as imitations of, or replacements for, French Burgundy. That said, one cannot help but wonder whether many California Pinot producers, having breached historic limits of ripeness and flirted with Port-like alcohol readings, will allow the style pendulum to swing back to a point at which they recover a degree of finesse without at the same time compromising their open, generous nature.   Less