2015 Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir
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Tasting notes
The 2015 Pinot Noir Allen Vineyard comes from a site in the Russian River Valley and saw roughly 20% stems and 17 months in 67% new French oak. It offers lots of strawberry, mint, sappy herbs, and spring flower notes as well as an elegant, seamless style on the palate. Like all these releases, it's tight and focused on the palate, with a closed, yet promising style. Hide bottles for a couple of years, and you'll be rewarded with a sexy, complex, complete Pinot Noir that will keep for a decade or more. I was able to taste a bevy of single vineyard Pinot Noirs (although I think it’s only scratching the surface with regards to their portfolio) from this iconic estate, all of which showed singular, incredibly high-quality characters. Be warned though, these are structured, tannic efforts that are going to benefit from short term cellaring. They’ll be very long lived!
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Wine Enthusiast
More reviews and scores
The 2015 Pinot Noir Allen Vineyard is a pretty, fruity wine to drink now and over the next few years. There is a good sense of immediacy that makes the Allen quite appealing, but a bit less in the way of complexity or structure. This straightforward Pinot is best enjoyed over the next few years.
Pale to medium ruby-purple in color, the 2015 Pinot Noir Allen Vineyard has quite a savory nose of charcuterie, sautéed Indian spices and Marmite toast with a core of raspberry pie and kirsch plus a waft of rose petals. Medium-bodied, finely crafted and very refined in the mouth, it has soft tannins and great freshness, finishing long and minerally. 208 cases produced.
(13.5% alcohol, lousy weather during the flowering resulted in millerandage): Good dark red. Aromas of dark raspberry and cola. Densely packed and thick, but with captivating inner-mouth perfume giving verve to the middle palate. Very young and unevolved, more voluminous than the 14 example but does it have that wine's impeccable balance? This deeply colored, extract-rich wine finishes with a firm tannic spine and lovely mineral lift. Even in 2015, said Mangahas, nearly 70% of this fruit came from the original 1974 planting. Williams-Selyem actually irrigated its vineyards in December of 14 due to the extremely dry conditions. Following an atypically warm January, the budbreak took place very early, at the beginning of February. After the poor weather during flowering, the rest of May and early June were cool and the growing season avoided heat spikes.
About the producer
Williams Selyem is an iconic Russian River Valley winery best known for its Pinot Noir. Producing restrained yet classically Californian expressions of the heartbreak grape (as well as a host of other wines), the property has gone from pioneer to one of the region’s standard-bearers.