Luli Pinot Noir "MonteLinda" 2022
(Santa Lucia Highlands, California)
Regular price $45.00 Sale price $39.99 Save $5.01
12-PACK PRICE = $37.99 per item (add 12+ quantity to your basket)
Luli represents a partnership formed by Sara Floyd and the Pisoni Family. Sara Floyd is a Master Sommelier with many years of food and wine experience. The Pisoni Family is known for their eponymous vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands and for Pisoni Estate and Lucia wines. Deciding they would make a great partnership and noting the shortage of handcrafted wines at reasonable prices, they set out to create a new line of wines for this niche. To achieve this, Floyd and the Pisoni Family focus on purchasing grapes from multiple vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands and the greater Monterey County—California coastal regions excellent for growing cool climate grapes.
THE VINEYARD: Residing high above the Salinas Valley at almost 715 feet in elevation, Monte Linda Vineyard is in the southern portion of the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA. This vineyard sits above the morning fog line, allowing for greater sun exposure, while at the same time seeing cooler nighttime temperatures, allowing the vines to rest and achieve a longer growing season. These conditions, along with the vineyard’s rocky soils, create deeply textured wines with notable structure.
THE WINEMAKING: Luli Pinot Noir is made with classic winemaking techniques: Hand-sorting of the fruit, native yeasts for fermentation and production in small lots. The wine was aged in ‘neutral’ French oak barrels and was not fined or filtered. Each barrel from the Monte Linda Vineyard is hand-selected, with only the best barrels being destined for this wine. The resulting balanced wine is a tribute to this vineyard’s success with Pinot Noir.
TASTING NOTES: Sporting a youthful, purple-tinged hue, this Pinot Noir packs a bouquet of vibrant aromas of black cherry, plum, and a spicy undertone of vanilla, clove, and cinnamon. On the palate, soft tannin envelops juicy flavors of dark berry compote, while savory notes of baking spice and earthy hints of forest f loor create added complexity. The coastal influences of the Santa Lucia Highlands permit long hang-time for each pristine cluster, resulting in optimum berry development and ripeness as well as preservation of age-worthy acidity.
92 Points - Jeb Dunnuck (2021):
"A slightly smaller production release (94 cases), the 2021 Pinot Noir Monte Linda comes from a higher elevation vineyard in the southern end of the Santa Lucia Highlands. As with the other Pinot Noir releases here, it was destemmed and brought up in neutral barrels. It's a fresher, tighter, structured wine offering crunchy black cherry and darker strawberry fruit, some scorched earth, leather, and savory spice aromatics, medium body, ripe, building tannins, and outstanding length in its juicy, crisp finish. Give it a year and it will evolve nicely through 2031." (Sep 2023)