Celebrating Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

The only other time I was in the town of Philo, CA was in February about 10 years ago. What made it memorable was the amount of snow that fell overnight while my wife and I had been staying in the guest house at Handley Winery. It was everywhere, and heavy - breaking branches off of oak trees kind of heavy.

I returned today (in much warmer weather) for my first attendance at the annual Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival which will now have a permanent circle on my event calendar. Before I do anything else, I want to thank Kristy Charles, of Foursight Wines who organized my attendance at both the Grand Tasting and an early morning and very lightly-attended media tasting of new releases. It was immediately apparent that a lot of thoughtful organization went into making this happen, all the little things put together make my job so much easier. Lastly  the layout of the tent (at Goldeneye Winery) was open and spacious and even though the event was well attended never felt crowded. Everyone seemed to be having a good time as well

Many of the producers of this region are well known to me and several have made it into my tasting notes previously - Handley, Goldeneye, Breggo, Black Kite, Harrington and Couloir have impressed from the beginning with wines that go from very good to exceptional. You can be assured there will be more in-depth discussion of these wines at the purely domestic wine report as they begin entering the market. From the media tasting hosted at Scharffenberger Cellars of 27 current and upcoming releases:

Three Star Wines

There were four wines I gave three stars

Two Star Wines

There were eight wines I gave two stars

To see what they were, please either register, or login to go to the purely domestic wine report.

Thank you,

Doug Wilder