2016 Eel River Valley Pinot Noir - Joseph Jewell Wines

Tart bing cherry, forest floor, nearly-ripe strawberry. Fresh cranberry, cool sea breeze, wild elderberry. Crushed lavender and delicate violet, tarragon and exotic spice. Young raspberry, rhubarb, and pomegranate seeds battle with conifers and white mushroom in tense, woodsy, and umami-filled attack. Cardamom and star anise provide wafts of lifted spice while fresh seaweed and marine sediment impart clean underlying salinity. Medium in body with subtle tannin and bright driving acidity; clearly focused on fresh crunchy weightlessness over power or extraction. Quite young, primary, and tightly wound. This 2016 Eel River Valley Pinot Noir by Joseph Jewell Wines is a delicate, restrained, and remarkably complex red from Humboldt County.

Humboldt County is one of California's newest frontiers for cool climate viticulture and producers from other parts of the state are beginning to take notice. This bottling, crafted by Sonoma-based Joseph Jewell Wines using Pinot Noir sourced from 3 vineyards in Humboldt County, provides a riveting glimpse into the character and promise of this remote region. This wine is quite lean and classically Burgundian in structure yet remains remarkably ethereal and expressive throughout. Its fruit character is extremely fresh and tart with only minor tertiary development, clearly begging for at least another 5-10 years in bottle to unfurl its vast layers. The cool Humboldt air and unforgiving forest-dominated terrain of this region are proving to be exceptionally well-suited to high quality Pinot Noir and producers like Joseph Jewell are doing a wonderful job translating that promise into world class wine.