2015 Lorna-Marie Etched 5L

The Lorna-Marie Pinot Noir bottling represents the very best and most complex barrels of any given vintage at our Estate, ostensibly our Reserve wine. Named for the mothers of two of our owners, the Lorna-Marie is an annual tribute to their beauty, grace, perseverance, strength, and magic.

2015 was similar to 2014 except it was warmer, bigger, and possibly even better. We hung heavier at fruit set to extend the plants’ energy across a broader field, somewhat slowing ripening and holding onto pH. We dropped fruit late but it was still a mega-harvest with beautiful fruit, broad tannins, and driving, concentrated layers of complexity throughout all of our wines. A small amount of whole-cluster fermentation used in this vintage adds a vein of black tea and rooibos throughout.

Lively and lush, with deep red fruit, bramble, summer berries, and graham cracker on the nose, this wine is aromatically thrilling running the full range of Pinot noir’s expression. From graphite, baking spice, cherry and earth, to a quiet little dash of butterscotch and fines herbs, there’s a little of a lot, and every taste reveals a new layer. The palate reveals itself slowly, but the liveliness and complexity persists throughout as high tones bounce and bound off of the wine’s dense expanse.

94 points from Josh Raynolds at Vinous