Toyon Farm, owned by Ed and Camille Penhoet, is located on a southwest-facing slope on the eastern (Napa) side of the Carneros. The palate is broad and generously continues to reveal more surprises - fresh herbal notes and hints of red licorice reverberate in the lovely chalky finish. The wine opens to particularly unctuous mid-palate of orange-spiced tea, cherry pie, plum and cassis.

This inaugural vintage of Pinot Noir from River Ranch displays a veritable spice rack of notes will enthrall your senses. Aging for 11 months in barrel with a single racking carried this wine gently to the bottle. Coupled with the warm fermentation, the generous extraction emphasizes the texture and racy spice inherent in the terroir of this vineyard. In typical fashion at Ancien, the grapes are gravity fed to one-ton open top tanks where the punch-downs were done by hand. Deliciously juicy, our wines excited our palates months before bottling! Ultimately, we were gifted a smaller vintage than the originally anticipated and we were very happy with the high quality of the grapes. Our harvest wrapped up, with wine aging in barrel and safe from smoke damage, long before the October fires visited Napa. Record-breaking heat in the days leading to harvest fully ripened the grapes, developing sugar and flavor, while cool nights ensured wines would retain mouthwatering acidity. It was an unusually wet year with a mild spring that allowed the vigorous vines to flower extensively.

It is a sandy soiled site with geology tracing to the meanderings of the Carmel River as well as its proximity to the Pacific Ocean.Īmple rain brought an end to our five-year drought and the 2017 vintage produced the high quality of fruit that we had enjoyed in the prior seasons.

This is the Mother block for the more recent planting at the Toyon Farm, which forms our designate from that vineyard. Of particular interest, the cuttings were originally sourced from a prestigious vineyard in Burgundy in the‘70s and subsequently brought in to California. Sourced from Ed and Camille Penhoet’s Carmel Valley property, the River Ranch vines were planted in 1982.

2010 clone 5 santa barbara pinot noir