We live in a Pinot Noir nation. Sure, we have our share of Chardonnay lovers, and more than a few long-term Cabernet relationships; we’ve been known to flirt occasionally with a Merlot or a Syrah, but ever since its poignant, vulnerable star-turn in ‘Sideways,’ we’ve become a nation smitten with Pinot, and there seems to be no turning back.
Rising demand for Pinot has brought many new brands into the market, and much of the swelling middle ground bears little resemblance to California Pinot’s traditional flavor profile; to varying degrees, the new Pinot profile has done away with Pinot’s delicacy, its haunting subtlety, and replaced it with darker fruit, a more obvious, extracted style, huge ripeness and alcohol levels, and generally more masculine features. Some of these new wines taste more like Syrah than Pinot, and their winemakers are generally proud of that fact. It’s hard to fault these wines for not being yummy, since many of them are, but they’re hardly distinctive–and Pinot’s calling card, after all, is terroir expression, its extraordinary ability to convey a sense of place.
Some purists have questioned the ‘Pinot-ness’ of these new wines. Josh Jenson of the Calera Winery on Mt. Harlan likens them to ‘extreme sports.’ But Brian Loring, whose Loring Wine Company is based in the Santa Rita Hills but who makes wines from all over the state, strenuously disagrees. ‘People’s idea of what was right ten years ago might not be true for the area,’ he points out. ‘It’s not that they don’t show terroir–it’s just that we have a new definition of terroir.’ For a variety of reasons, some of them conflicting, Loring may be right.
If there’s a hotbed for this discussion in California right now, it’s the Santa Rita Hills, in Santa Barbara County. Thirty years ago 
the region was considered too cold, too marginal, and too exotic for any but the most stubborn of winemakers–Richard Sanford, for one–who staked out the territory. Hindsight has proven he was well ahead of his time, but in his early years, it was a bit of a rough go: while the wines exhibited tremendous character, most vintages required many years in the bottle before they were approachable. In effect, the pioneer wineries there had to wait for advances in technology and (and perhaps an ever-warming climate) to show the potential of the place.
In the early nineties, early-ripening Dijon clones suddenly made these more marginal zones viable and the edge, for Pinot Noir, was pushed out to ever cooler places. This new frontier in terroir expression has partly contributed to the proliferation of Pinot styles.
Take Cargasacchi vineyards, in the cool western edge of the Santa Rita Hills. It has gained a reputation for producing some of the darkest wines in California, in terms of Pinot fruit expression–showing more blueberry and black raspberry than strawberry and red cherry. The fruit profile seems to have attracted Pinot producers like Brian Loring and Adam Lee of Siduri Wines, style-conscious winemakers who favor a more demonstrative, masculine style of Pinot, with high degrees of ripeness, extract and power, often at the expense of finesse. For better or worse, that style has come to be associated with Cargasacchi and the Santa Rita Hills.
It seems like a paradox: How can such a cold place produce such powerful, bruising wines? The answer, in part, is the wind. The Santa Rita Hills serve as a gateway for maritime air as it’s drawn to warmer inland valleys and the daily onslaught of wind wreaks havoc on a vine’s physiology. ‘The wind just sucks on that vine,’ says Peter Cargasacchi, ‘and slows its rate of evapo-transpiration [its ability to pull up water and nutrients]. Eventually it just shuts down.’ The other thing it does, he thinks, is thicken the grapeskins, which contributes color and intensity–and suddenly you have the sort of attributes that power Pinot producers like Loring and Lee look for.
However, Cargasacchi’s own wine (he started his winery in 2000) bears little resemblance to the darker-fruited wines from Siduri and Loring. The Cargasacchi Estate Pinot is lightly perfumed, faintly herbal, and plainly in the red-fruit end of the Pinot spectrum, with textures that are gentle and balanced. So how much of all this is substance, and how much is style?
The Santa Rita Hills, and Cargasacchi in particular, represent an interesting paradox in trying to direct a clear eye to California Pinot Noir at this moment in time. Clonal developments–technology, in short–have made formerly untenable places viable for the grape, which in turn has led to unexpected results and vastly different wine styles. But at the end of the day the winemaker decides when to pick when and what to make of the raw material that nature has provided. He decides whether Pinot will taste like a thing we know, or morph into something we no longer recognize.
Here are a few pertinent reviews of Pinots from the Santa Rita Hills:
Cargasacchi, Santa Rita Hills (Santa Barbara County, 
California) Pinot Noir 2005 ($43): Lifted and light, this gentle Pinot has scents of green herb and wild strawberry. Its red-fruited flavor is anomalous with many of the wines that come from the vineyard, where other wineries flaunt darker flavors. There’s a beautiful freshness to the tannin, and an earthy bottom note that grounds the wine and gives it length. 91
Melville Vineyards Estate, Santa Rita Hills (Santa Barbara 
County, California) Pinot Noir 2005 ($28): Dark, powerful, and intense, this nevertheless has the acidity and structure to show off the terroir while remaining unabashed about fruit. Aromas of cinnamon and other brown spices support fruit in the plum, cassis spectrum. Tightly focused and youthful on the palate, it has a brisk mineral edge to support generous fruit. Young; wait a year and serve with duck breast. 91
Loring Wine Company, Santa Rita Hills (Santa Barbara 
County, California) Clos Pepe Vineyards Pinot Noir 2005 ($46): A dark wine with heavy extract, leading with aromas of sweet raspberry jam and dark cherry. Its flavors are fat and ripe, with a thick texture and a rich, generous finish. 89
Siduri, Santa Rita Hills (Santa Barbara County, California) Pinot Noir 2005 ($29): A blend of Clos Pepe and Cargasacchi fruit, this wine is all dark, cocoa’d oak at first. But with air, aromatic hints of deep, plummy fruit peek through, which evolves toward a lush black raspberry flavor, while the heavy toast ends up supporting the dark red fruit elements. 88