Dragonette Cellars Radian Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 Red Wine

Dragonette Cellars Radian Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022

Sta. Rita Hills AVA, CA

750 ml

96 pts. Wine Advocate:

“Along with the Duvarita bottling, the 2022 Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard is a centerpiece in the Dragonette roster. It leads with a distinctly savory, wild and intensely focused nose that walks the line between angularity and harshness incredibly well. The palate is similarly laser-like and driving, exuding an attractive silkiness buttressed by an unwaveringly tensile rudder that runs through the finish. It concludes with the inward, compacted, tannin profile that continuously swells and morphs with time in the glass, never losing its palpable tension. It's one of the top expressions of Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir and will benefit from a year or so of cellaring before developing over the following decade.”

96 pts. Wine Enthusiast:

“This wine starts delicately and then quickly intensifies into deliciously arrayed aromas of raspberry, sour cherry, toasted sagebrush and cracked pepper. The palate pulls a similar trick, as creamy tannins ease into waves of flavors, from red fruit to cinnamon, mace, turned earth and wild herb. The texture and taste linger long.”

95 pts. Vinous:

“The 2022 Pinot Noir Radian Vineyard is powerful, deep and substantial. Dark toned fruit, spice, lavender, licorice and leather all build in the glass. Ample and expansive, with tremendous depth, the 2022 is super-expressive, not to mention a total delight to taste. This finishes with a huge explosion of fruit and aromatics.”

Dragonette Cellars is definitely one of our personal favorite wineries in the Sta. Rita Hills area. Their winemaking is superb, year after year! The Radian Pinot Noir is a bold and beautiful wine – deeper in fruit than the “Sta. Rita Hills” blend – and although it’s lip-smacking good now, it is a baby; give it more time in the bottle and you’ll be rewarded! – Wine Factor

FROM THE WINERY

PHILOSOPHY

We seek to identify exceptional vineyard sites and farming partners in order to source and grow the finest fruit in Santa Barbara. Vineyard blocks are individually managed for appropriate canopy, proper yield, and ideal pick date. We then shepherd this fruit into wine with our own hands. Wines are barreled and aged on their lees until they reach their full potential. The goal is wines of complexity, balance, and textual purity that are also true to both vintage and place. We bottle single vineyard wines when wines from a particular vineyard express a unique character or sense of “place” and yet are complete wines of balance, harmony and interest.

THE VINEYARD

Radian vineyard is located at the far western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills on dramatically steep slopes with large amounts of diatomaceous earth. Radian is extreme, regularly blanketed by fog and buffeted by high winds. The vines here struggle to set fruit, and the resulting yields are extremely low, but the grapes highly concentrated. The resulting wines are lean and intense, with a fascinating mineral streak and a remarkable depth of flavor even at low alcohol levels.

THE VINTAGE

2022 was another generally cool year that was upended by a late season heatwave, much like 2020. Winter began with a series of December storms and excellent early rainfall. Unfortunately, there was no rain after January, leaving soils dry by early Spring, which was cool and very windy. Budbreak was early but yields were on the low side due to shatter and drought. Spring and early summer were cool with only a few days of warmth, portending a late year. August turned warmer and ripening accelerated. In early September we faced an extended 7-10 day heatwave, which required careful monitoring, picking and sorting. Radian was at the tail end of verasion at the time of the heatwave, and thus was less impacted than other sites. Yields suffered from dehydration, but acidities remained solid from the overall cool year. With careful sorting and handling, quality was excellent.

OUR WINEMAKING

We harvest each individual lot in the cold early morning hours with hand sorting in the field by the owners. We process the fruit within hours; the grapes are mostly destemmed without crushing, with a portion of whole cluster added to the fermenters. We cold soak the grapes for 2 to 3 days, then ferment the juice with native yeasts, using a mixture of pumpovers and punchdowns for extraction. At dryness, free run juice is drained to barrel, and the berries gently pressed separately. The wine is aged on its lees for 18 months before bottling without fining or filtration.

PROPRIETORS/WINEMAKERS

John Dragonette, Steve Dragonette, & Brandon Sparks-Gillis

CLONES: 113, 115, 667, 777

VITICULTURE: Sustainable (SIP Certified) Under-vine cultivation (no herbicides)

HARVEST DATES: September 10, 14, 22 & 26

APPELLATION: Sta. Rita Hills

FERMENTATION: 1.5 Ton open top fermenters, 97% Destemmed, 3% Whole Cluster, 2-3 day cold soak, Native yeasts, Native MLF

COOPERAGE: 100% French Oak (40% new)

AGING: 18 months on the lees

BOTTLED: March 25, 2024

ALCOHOL: 13.8%

CASES PRODUCED: 490