2016 Pivot Pinot Noir
Estimated value
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2016 Pinot Noir The Pivot Estate Vineyard is gracious and sensual in the glass. Sweet, perfumed and super-expressive, the 2016 is quite appealing, even in the early going. This mid-weight, aromatically expressive Pinot has so much to offer. The Pivot will start drinking well with minimal cellaring but also has plenty of room to grow.
Critic scores
Jancis Robinson MW
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Lean and fresh and mineral. 21st-century style. Older vines mean you can pick less ripe, and still be fresh and rather broad and charming. Reverberant.
Delicious, earthy, complex and spicy nuances with game and a very striking, black-cherry and gently arboreal edge to the fruit. The palate has expressive, vibrant and succulent, deeply layered, ripe cherries and plums. Packed with flavor, long, majestic tannins and an effortlessly powerful, long, fruit-soaked finish. Such concentration here. Drink or hold.
From a vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, not far from the estate, the 2016 Pinot Noir The Pivot Vineyard offers a transparent, medium-bodied, elegant feel as well as classic notes of cranberries, mulberries, dried flowers, and dried herbs. As with all of Ted’s wines, it’s impeccably made. This is another estate making a distinctly vibrant, fresh style of wine that’s going to appeal to the Burgundy lovers out there. It’s an incredibly educational tasting going through all these different single vineyards from Ted Lemon and these are interesting, singular wines. As a whole, the 2015s shows slightly more oomph compared to the 2016s, yet both vintages have vibrant acidity and balanced profiles. As expected, quantities are slightly up in 2016.
About the producer
Littorai stands as one of California’s most quietly influential estates, defined by organic and biodynamic farming, site transparency, and a restrained, Burgundian sensibility.