California Pinot Noir at This Moment
Over the last decade, northern California Cabernet Sauvignon producers have famously struggled with less than ideal ripening, seasonal heat spikes and intermittent fires, these worries occasionally counterpointed by very fine harvests like 2019, 2021 and 2023. At the same time, our Pinot Noir producers have seen little but more reasons to smile. The 2022 Harvest was plentifully supplied with seductive wines and the 2023 crop, currently being released, is uniformly brilliant all the way from Santa Barbara to Mendocino.
The California Pinot Noir crop was picked late everywhere in our state in 2023, typically 3 weeks or more late. This state-wide phenomena gave serious jitters togrowers and vintners alike, especially as the late crop brought with it the fear of rain prior to harvest. Happily, that harvest proved to be essentially rain free in all Pinot-friendly appellations, allowing the grapes time to achieve virtually ideal ripeness. This is my 54th year of awaiting the next harvest and this 2023 weather pattern, almost “Burgundian”, has never happened previously, to my memory.
What especially appeals to me in 2023 is that in each Pinot Noir friendly appellation - from Santa Barbara to Mendocino - the grapes have kept their regional personality and virtually nothing is overripe. Overall, these wonderfully fruity Pinots have splendid poise, charm and focus along with appropriate zest and tannic grip. Having said this, the area that seems to exhibit the grandest fruit, structure and consequent age-ability lies from the Russian River Valley westward through the extreme Sonoma Coast (where vineyards often look down upon the blue Pacific ocean). When I tasted Cattleya Winery’s 2023 “The Goddess” Pinot, blended from western Sonoma properties, I though it had the backbone of a Chambertain. It offered chiseled fruit focus, impressive tannic structure, minerality, length, optimum ripeness, aromatic beauty and vibrant freshness. It is one of several wines from this area that I have tasted and found downright profound.
Current members of the Napa Valley Winery Exchange’s Pinot Noir Club have already received a variety of terrific bottlings which I think clearly support my point of view. The December 2025 Pinot Noir Club 6-pack included delicious and age-worthy 2023s from Santa Barbara’s very fine Paul Lato and Samsara wineries,along with the Kerr Winery’s 2023 Silver Eagle Vineyard bottling which is clearly a great wine in the making.
Our March 2026 Pinot Club box included Nid Tisse Winery’s classy Radian Vineyard bottling from Santa Barbara, while the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation was beautifully represented by Red Stitch’s Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot. Three Sticks Winery’s wonderful 2023 Gap’s Crown Vineyard Pinot, from the Peteluma Gap and also in the March box, is very likely that winery’s finest vintage yet from this splendid property. Incidentally, 2023 was the greatest of a trio of fantastic vintages at Silver Eagle vineyard (planted in the Russian River area by the legendary Ulysses Valdes and sold to more than a half dozen wineries). The 2019 and 2021
harvests were spectacular at this property and in our March Pinot Noir Club box, Silver Eagle’s 2021 vintage was represented by the splendid 2021 Pont Neuf. 2023’s less expensive “appellation wines”, at a much more modest price, are almost uniformly delicious. Brooks Note’s Sonoma Coast and Juicy Rebound’s Russian River bottling are notable examples. We have so far seen perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the 2023s appear in the marketplace, but can’t wait to see more.
Last week I visited Pisoni Winery, in the Santa Lucia Highlands, partly to try their upcoming ’23 Estate PN. I found it glorious. This bottling has typically been a powerhouse (the still available 2022, from a vintage concentrated by a 50% crop reduction, is a textbook Pisoni and it’s almost beastly rich). In contrast, the 2023 is sleek, streamlined and wonderfully elegant while still offering all the age-ability and flavor purity that could be hoped for.
Such tastings force me to conclude that 2023 may ultimately prove to be the Pinot Noir vintage of a lifetime, and to me, each new release is exciting. Sadly, fine Pinot Noir grapes produce a small to tiny crop wherever they are grown and the news is getting around about the 2023s. Get them while you can!
Don Gillette
April 1, 2026