2024 Kistler Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir

In the heart of Sonoma County, nestled among picturesque vineyards, lies the extraordinary Kistler Vineyards.

Kistler waits ten to fifteen years before a vineyard earns its own label. This is where the young plantings go.

Steve Kistler started here in 1978, chasing a Burgundian idea on the wrong continent. Nearly fifty years later the house still bottles a single site only when that site proves it. Everything else lands in this wine. That makes the Sonoma Coast bottling the most honest thing Kistler makes.

The New York Times named Steve as “A Cult Winemaker” applauding his contribution to California Chardonnay. And Food and Wine Magazine's Wine Guide considers this Chardonnays the "Best of the Best" among "Star Producers”

The fruit comes off two plantings in western Sonoma County, deep in the fog line. Goldridge soil underneath. Cool mornings, slow ripening, and acid that holds all the way to the press house.

Picking happens at night. The fruit is destemmed, then fermented whole-berry with native yeast in open-top tanks. Nothing gets pressed. Only free-run juice is collected, which is a costly way to work. Ten months in French oak follows, 38 percent of it new, one racking to tank, then bottling unfined and unfiltered.

The house called 2024 a classic year. Budbreak on time, a warm summer, good yields thinned by hand, a smooth harvest.

What I like here is the restraint. This is not a fruit bomb wearing a Pinot label. It is bright, chalky, faintly salty, and it stays out of its own way.

Open it with dinner, not before. It wants a plate in front of it.