2016 Rhys Pinot Noir Horseshoe Hillside Vineyard
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One of the highlights in this report is unquestionably the 2016 Pinot Noir Horseshoe Vineyard Hillside, which is in the running for one of the greatest Pinot Noirs I’ve ever tasted from California. A thrilling bouquet of blackcurrants, crushed rocks, chocolate, and Asian spices all flow to a rich, powerful wine that doesn’t pull any punches with regard to depth of fruit or structure. While most 2016s have some upfront charm and accessibility, that’s not the case here, and this needs a solid 4-5 years of bottle age. It’s a magical wine, though, and readers should beg, borrow, or steal to get a hold of it.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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The 2016 Pinot Noir Horseshoe Vineyard Hillside is another exceptionally beautiful wine from Rhys. The Hillside is built on textural resonance and breadth, with the fruit very nicely amped up. Pliant and vivid in the glass, the Horseshoe Hillside has a very bright future. Interestingly, the two Horseshoe Pinots have more in common stylistically than the two Alpine Pinots
The 2016 Pinot Noir Horseshoe Hillside Vineyard is also exceptional, and if anything, even more youthfully coiled and reserved than the Alpine Hillside bottling, wafting from the glass with complex aromas of peony, raw cocoa, sweet wild berries and grilled meat, complemented by ineffably savory, umami-like bass notes. When I speculated that it was showing some very subtle reduction, Harvey and Brinkman suggested—persuasively—those savory qualities simply represented an amplification of the aromatic signatures found in the regular Horseshoe bottling. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with incredible concentration and purity, concluding with a focused and stony finish. Again, 5 or 6 years of cellaring will be required here, and a decade will be recommended.