2015 Porcupine Hill Pinot Noir
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Tasting notes
The 2015 Pinot Noir Porcupine Hill Bearwallow Vineyard is a particular success in this vintage, opening in the glass with a lovely bouquet of black cherries and raspberries, rich spices, coniferous forest floor and subtle notions of cola. On the palate, it's full-bodied, lavish and beautifully complete, with a generous core of fruit that's framed by velvety tannins and underpinned by bright acids. Seamless and superbly delineated, I suspect this is Rhys' best Porcupine Hill release to date, and it's well worth seeking out. It also happens to be one of the few cuvées that were produced in reasonable quantities this year.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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From the same vineyard as the Bearwallow cuvee, the 2015 Pinot Noir Porcupine Hill comes from newer, high density plantings checking in at a seriously packed 17,000 vines per hectare. It’s one of most seamless, sexy, yet still balanced and classic wines I’ve tasted from Kevin and his team. Black raspberries, framboise, rose garden, violets and loads of spice all flow to an incredibly textured, seamless, perfectly ripe Pinot Noir that has silky tannin and a great finish. The tannin quality is what really separates this cuvee from the straight vineyard release, and it’s a more polished, elegant wine that’s going to age beautifully. Drink it anytime over the coming 15+ years. This was a terrific lineup of 2015s from the team at Rhys. Across the board, these are tight and structured, with terrific concentration. Give them a few years of bottle age. Unfortunately, due to the devastating yields, there’s no Skyline Vineyard or Hillside releases in 2015s. In addition, they have a new estate vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains (bringing their total to seven estate vineyards) that will be coming on line over the next couple of years. Named Mount Pajaro Vineyard, the site was planted in 2010 and covers 18 acres in the southern part of the Santa Cruz Mountains, planted all with high density, 3.5 feet row spacing. Harvey commented that they’ve learned a lot over the past decade planting their other estate properties and they’re excited about the quality of this site.
All of the qualities of Bearwallow come through in the 2015 Pinot Noir Bearwallow Vineyard Porcupine Hill, but in an amped up manner. Plush and intense, but also massively tannic, the 2015 is going to require quite a bit of patience. Here, too, the flavors are on the darker end of the spectrum. This is a gorgeous wine in the making. The core of Porcupine Hill is composed of newer, high density plantings, but the wine itself is best defined as the very best selection of Bearwallow.