Black Kite Cellars Gap's Crown Pinot Noir 2021 Red Wine

Black Kite Cellars Gap's Crown Pinot Noir 2021 

Sonoma Coast AVA, Petaluma Gap sub-AVA

750 ml

92 pts. James Suckling:

"Aromas of strawberries, red cherries and lavender followed by kola nuts, ground cloves and chocolate. Medium-bodied, moderate acidity and fine-grained ripe tannins. Good tension to it. Drink or hold." 

92 pts. Jeb Dunnuck:

"A semi-opaque ruby, the 2021 Pinot Noir Gap's Crown Vineyard takes on a spicier dark mineral tone, with notes of balsamic herbs, cedar, and black cherry. Full-bodied, it is packed with ripe cherry and boysenberry fruit and offers meaty richness, ripe sweet tannins, and good acidity throughout. Although it’s a ripe style of red, it has a good bit of underlying tension that should prove to hold up over the next 6-8 years." 

This Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ranks right up there with the best of the region. It's one of those wines you just can't get enough of! Winemaker Jeff Gaffner coaxes the best out of the Gap's Crown Vineyard grapes, resulting in a wine that is layered with all the delicious flavors and aromas of highest quality Pinot Noirs. - Wine Factor

The Gap's Crown vineyard is located on the west side of Sonoma Mountain. It's a cool, windy vineyard, perfect for growing great Pinot Noir. Many upper-echelon wineries vie for allocations of its grapes. 

FROM THE WINERY

GROWING CONDITIONS

The 2021 growing season offered optimal conditions for Pinot Noir from start to finish which is why this vintage is being rated the best in the last 20 years. With minimal rainfall in the early months of the year and mild temperatures in Spring and early Summer, the vines had normal bud break in mid-March and successful flowering in June. The remainder of the season was moderate and stable, allowing us to leave the fruit on the vines as long as we wished to ripen optimally with good acidity. These ideal growing conditions gave us wines showing marvelous depth of flavor, bright acidity and great balance and structure, and they promise to improve with cellaring as well.

WINEMAKING AND COOPERAGE

The grapes were harvested in the early morning hours and transported immediately to the winery, where they were destemmed and cold soaked for 48 hours, inoculated with a low rate of Burgundian yeast and punched down three to four times daily. After fermentation, the wine rested for 17 months in a mix of new (33%) and one-year old French oak barrels from the Allier, Vosges, Troncais and Bertranges forests.

TASTING NOTES

The fruit profile of our Gap’s Crown Vineyard block is so consistent with small clusters of very concentrated fruit that the wine evokes a favorite cherry pie. Our 2021 bottling is no exception, with ripe cherry and sweet plum aromas leaping from the glass, joined by notes of lavender, violets with just a hint of chocolate cake mix to make it interesting. On the palate, all this just-baked goodness unfurls in rich, concentrated layers of macerated cherries and sweet toasty oak, hints of which persist throughout the long complex finish. Enjoy upon release or cellar for up to 7-9 years.

TITRATABLE ACIDITY - 6.2 g/L

ALCOHOL - 14.4%

PINOT NOIR CLONES - 777, 115

PH - 3.38

HARVEST DATE - September 24, 2021

CASES PRODUCED - 437