A Visit to Pisoni
I taste a lot of wine with my colleagues at Napa Valley Winery Exchange, usually we average more than 40 bottles in the course of a week. That’s over 2000 or so, annually. However, the realities of the COVID era required lifestyle changes for people like me and there were many new legal regulations that required me to temper my traditional work habits. As a group such issues drastically restricted my activities and actual winery visits became few and far between, so that rather than dozens annually there were virtually none. I could bore readers with the details, but to what purpose. Recently circumstances have created new visiting opportunities and one can always find reasons to use these.
My spouse is a hand quilter, one of a seemingly disappearing breed. She teaches this craft regionally and she was recently offered a three-day opportunity to do so in King City. This opportunity coincided with my own days off and she asked me to accompany her. King City is not Paris, but it is quite close to the Santa Lucia Highlands, a notable source of fine California Pinot Noir that I felt was long overdue for a visit. She would only be able to join me for one such visit and I chose only one stop.
I was hoping to combine pleasure (or curiosity?) and work, as I hoped to visit Pisoni, the most legendary property in the appellation. I had not ventured there in over two decades. Pisoni is frequently cited as producing California’s most powerful Pinot Noir and it is famously planted to Burgundy’s La Tache Pinot clone (by all accounts brought into our state with little regard for the laws about how this was supposed to be done: in other words a “suitcase clone”). Pisoni’s Estate grown Pinot is almost always memorable yet is never reminiscent of Burgundy. I hoped 2023's distinctive weather might create an especially memorable surprise.
Pisoni Pinot is always a level up in power and richness, but the 2022 Pisoni was from a tiny crop that made it even grander in scale than usual. The 2023 crop (throughout California) was picked three to four weeks later than usual, with cooler (more like Burgundy) days that bought distinction virtually everywhere one looked. I thoughtt it conceivable that Pisoni’s 2023, in such weather, might produce a wine along the lines of great Burgundy (dreaming of Chambertin here). I was extremely anxious to try it. I left the winery a phone message expressing my hopes for a visit and my call was promptly returned with a Yes, by Quinn Pisoni, wife of Vineyardist Mark Pisoni.
Over the years I have often been poured samples of this bottling. First by Gary Pisoni, then son Jeff as time passed. Both were gracious hosts, notably without pretension, yet I had never met Mark, my host to be. Quinn gave us careful driving instructions, as this property (southernmost of the great SLH properties) is in the mountains and has no near neighbors. What it does have is a maze of rutted dirt roads that connect various sections of the property, all typically looking more or less abandoned. No winery is amongst them. Jeff met us near the entrance, in his pickup, and we followed him around the property to their outdoor tasting area (which was still closed down for the winter).
Jeff met us with 5 unopened wines, all of which were more than tasty already, while most were age-worthy as well. A big surprise was the 2025 Lucy Pico Bianco, a particularly enchanting Pinot Gris based blend. (this went immediately into one of our wine clubs). We spent an hour tasting wine, eating cheeses (terrific ones!), learning about recent harvests and reminiscing. Overall were treated as if we were lost children, returning to the fold. Wine number five was the 2023 Pisoni Estate Pinot Noir, which met my hopes, dreams and aspirations for it almost ideally. My notes follow:
2023 Pisoni Pinot Noir Estate, Santa Lucia Highlands
San Francisco Wine Panel Score Points
This stunning Pinot Noir opens with vibrantly focused aromas of dark cherry, red raspberry coulis, whortleberry, orange-cranberry relish, peppercorn and hazelnut husk: all in graceful harmony, with piquant zest and obvious grip. On the palate, it is texturally sleek, intense, gripping, piquantly fresh yet supple and is packed with a racy mix of all the fruit notes promised in the nose. The finish is extremely long and notably chiseled in focus, while dark mineral notes emerge to counterpoint the raspberry, cranberry sauce, whortleberry and oaky spice flavors, none of this marring the wine’s intrinsic elegance in any way. A terrific effort, it delivers all the Pisoni drama but with a graceful harmony more reminiscent of Grand Cru Burgundy than their more typically power-packed Estate bottling. It continues to develop extra layers of depth and virtue two days after opening. Expect five years or more of growth and a long life after that.
The attributes I see in the 2023 harvest are well illustrated with this wine. Like a Chambertin: a beastly powerful and age-worthy wine of concentration and varietal clarity that is also capable of showing the nuances that this singular grape can deliver in the very same bottle.
In 2023 California Pinot Noirs frequently display this inherent Burgundy-style delicacy despite being concentrated, while they also consistently showcase the character of both the region and the vintage. In general, they are not to be missed, and we try every one we can, as soon as it’s released. Our June 2026 Pinot Club box has three beauties, including the Pisoni.