Santa Barbara County: Bonaccorsi Pinot Noir

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Shereen Tan. Welcome back to the show today. We have single vineyard Pinot Noirs from Santa Barbara Cay. I know you're excited about this episode, right? I'm one of our favorite producers of Pinot Noirs. Before we get started, I want to let you guys know that this video has not been paid for in any way, shape, or form, but if you do like these videos, if you find value in them, check out our guide to the wines of Santa Barbara County, the downloadable book called... Sipping Santa Barbara Recommended Wines and Producers. All right, before we get started, so we basically, we Coravin'd all these wines with our Coravin Model 2 Elite. Thank you to Coravin for giving us a test sample to use. And to these beautiful Gabrielle Gold hand-blown glasses, right? Very nice. I will have a discount code up at the end of the video for some Gabrielle Glass stemware. Ready to get started? Bona Corsi. I would say Bona Corsi. A producer that we respect and like very much, started by Michael and Jenny Lee. Bona Corsi. Michael was actually a top, I think he was a Master Sommelier, actually in LA. Yes, I think he was, but he did, after they established the winery, he did pass from a heart attack. His wife, late wife Jenny Lee, now takes care of the winemaking. She makes all the wines, makes very elegant wines. These wines are kind of the exact opposite of some of the big Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir that you come across, wouldn't you say? Yeah, they're much more, a lot of restraint on the nose, extremely elegant structure, and you know they're all built for aging. We have tasted some 2010, which was coming along beautiful. We have three different wines, three different vineyards, and three different vintages. Ready to get started? Let's go with the youngest. First, we have the Bona Corsi John Sebastiano Vineyard from 2014. You are a big fan of the wines that come out of this vineyard, right? Correct? Me too. Let's give this a little bit of a go. First of all, beautiful, beautiful, true Pinot Noir-esque color, lighter in color. Let's give this a smell. You know what I like about these glasses is you don't need a lot of wine to smell. Yeah, exactly, and it's very easy to soar because it's like this. Oh gosh, this is exactly, I love these wines. All 45 U.S. dollars. Not cheap, I know, definitely not cheap, but for single vineyard, high quality Pinot Noir. I think it's not too shabby. What do you pick up on this? Much more floral, a little bit of blue food, but lots of violet. Strawberry for me, cool whip, kind of like a cool whip cream flavor, which I like. Beautiful, beautiful nose. Ruby, let's give this, it's perfume too. Lighter body on the palate, I'm sorry, earthier on the palate than I would expect. Chalky taste to it, sensational. It's a little bit tight and linear right now on the palate, but that's what I appreciate about that wine because I can't wait to see in a few more years how it's going to unwind itself. It's really beautiful because this is not big, huge, these are not big, huge, extracted Pinot Noirs that sometimes you come across in Santa Rita Hills, which we have no problem with, sometimes those wines are fun, but this is beautiful, elegant stuff. What do you think? Yeah, the structure is incredible. I, as of right now, I'm 4.4 out of 5 on this. I think it's a phenomenal Pinot Noir. I'm not going to argue with that. You ready to move on? You gonna dump it in here to save it? Okay, let's move on, shall we? We have the Bona Corsi Fiddlesticks Vineyard owned by Kathy Joseph from Fiddlehead. 2013 Pinot Noir. This one has a little bit darker color. What do you see? Color, I don't know if you can pick that up. Just slightly a little bit darker color. Let's give this a go, shall we? This is definitely less floral than the previous. This is more perfume and floral. This is more earthy right away on the palate, which I'm digging right away. It has a little rock smell to it. Beautiful strawberry. This is beautiful, this is nice, right? What do you think? Yeah. Let's give this a little bit of a go, shall we? The previous structure is a little bit more foamy at this point. Funny enough, because that's 2014, but the 2013 is broader, more expressive. Shows a little bit more wood, too, to me. Okay. You don't pick it up as much? I guess so, yeah, on the finish. Spicier finish? This is a little more masculine. This is a little bit more feminine to me. What do you think? Am I wrong? I don't know. This is because the wood to me makes it a little burlier. This one is a little bit more delicate. These are what you can see as we're talking, these are definitely contemplation wines. Which one are you enjoying more? For me, I care a lot about the structure of Pinot Noir. I like both, but currently, right now, on first sip, I'm more into this. This one? I think this has more texture to it at this point, though, and broader mid-palate. Tannins are a little bit grippy in the 2013 as well. I'm just going to stick by my guns. This one has more wood, some more tannins. I think it's a little bit more masculine to me. This one's more delicate and feminine. I'm about 4.2 on this. I still think it's a very good wine. 4.4 on this one. Both good wines to start, right? Let's move on, shall we? We have next the Bona Corsi 2012 Melville Vineyard. 2012, Melville is down Highway 246. There's an estate called the Melville Estate, which Shireen likes very much, right? There's some good cool fruit coming out there, some nice Syrahs as well. Let's give this a little bit of a sniff, shall we? 2012. This is the St. Barbara Pinot Noir that I know. This is a little bit richer, a little bit more riper. The cherry is up. I like it. There's some grassy tone, still a little bit but it's like fruit first. For me, it's more like these are strawberry, this is cherry. Let's center in Santa Rita Hills to me. More cherry-ish. Earth, some cool, so I like this. Well, the fruit intensity is very high in this. Nice texture. This is a little bit more fruity. These are obviously, this is earthy, more floral perfume notes. What do you think about this? Are you enjoying it as much? This actually has more powerful, intense fruit flavor. In fact, as of now, this has longer fruit finish, whereas this has more tannic finish. I'm still going to stick with this. It's so funny, this is the first time we actually agree. I'm 4.4, 4.3, 4.2, but all good Pinot Noirs. You think this is 4.3 and this is 4.3? Yeah. This is very good wine, but for me right now, I'm in this phase where I'm not enjoying the wood so much. That's super woody, it's not oaky, but I can definitely feel the oak tannins at the end. Okay. Anything else? I agree. I'm just thinking about how long these wines can age, especially these two. Good showing by Jenny Lee. Jenny Lee Bonacorsi, her wines are elegant, super well made. I mean, they're just beautiful wine. There's not a single one that we tasted by her that we haven't liked. Yeah, we liked her Melville Chardonnay a lot too, right? Wow, so check it out. Anything else you want to add on Bonacorsi, Santa Rita Hills? Oh, I think it's important to mention that the first time we tasted this wine was a taste of Santa Rita Hills and Lone Fork Wine Ghetto. Yeah, so we have to thank Antonio and Jenny Moretti. Yeah, because these wines are quite difficult to get. There's no tasting room, you have to taste them at Taste of Santa Rita Hills. Guys, I will put the discount code for the Gabriel glass up on the screen. Eligible for 15% off the standard machine-blown glass and the alpha decanter. We are not affiliates. We don't get anything out of it. It's just us extending an offer to you. Check out our guide, Sipping Santa Barbara. Check out Bonacorsi. That's about it, right? Guys, if you like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. See you at the next episode.