Elke 2004 Pinot Noir, Donnelly Creek Vineyard

Winemaker Notes:
By the late 1980s, when Napa vintners were looking to the Carneros district to grow Pinot Noir, we went north to the sparsely populated Anderson Valley, in Mendocino County. It more closely resembled the climate of Burgundy, and that’s what we were after, a Burgundian-style Pinot Noir. We purchased a beautiful 80-acre site along the confluence of Donnelly and Anderson creeks, just east of the fabled town of Boonville. We were among the very first grape growers in the Anderson Valley to experiment with several pyloxera-resistant rootstocks and clonal combinations. It wasn’t long before we discovered it wasn’t just the climate of Anderson Valley but the exceptional soil that held such promise for producing premium Pinot Noir.