Phillips Hill Estates

Toulouse Vineyard is the kind of place that makes you wish you could be a grape vine for an afternoon, basking in the sun on a scenic knoll, cooled by marine breezes and listening to the rustling of redwood trees overhead. It’s also a place with a surprisingly strong flavor signature; I’m not the only taster I know who finds clear similarities among the four vineyard-designated Pinot Noirs coming out of Toulouse at this point.

This one is from a new label, Phillips Hill, that nevertheless has done its homework: the wine’s intense, red and black fruit flavors laced with toasted oak and dry earth is smack on trend for Anderson Valley. There’s also good palate weight and substantial body, well coordinated with the fruit, acid and tannin to provide instant pleasure on entry. I would hold this to 2010 to let all the good things harmonize even more – the winemakers seem to have had that in mind though the first impression is obviously calculated to win fast friends.

Reviewed August 3, 2007 by Thom Elkjer.