2016 Pinot Noir UV-SL Vineyard

This is a stellar set of wines from Mark Aubert. The Chardonnays in particular are terrific. Aubert describes 2016 as a benign growing season with just a few days above 90 degrees and no days above 100. Echoing a theme I saw elsewhere, Aubert reported lower than normal alcohol conversions (the conversion from Brix to finished alcohol), which means his wines are a bit lower in alcohol than they typically are. In the Chardonnays, this is evident in wines that have terrific brilliance to go with the textural density that is such an Aubert signature. Fermentations for the 2016 Chardonnays were very long. Some wines took eight months to finish their sugars. The Chardonnays showed very well in this tasting, even though they had been bottled just a few weeks prior. Moreover, none of the wines evidenced any real signs of new oak, which is remarkable considering the wines saw 80-100% wood. I saw less difference in the Pinots vis-à-vis prior years. Aubert gave the 2016 Pinots a total of 30-40 days on the skins. Over the last few years, Aubert has begun to experiment with a small amount (10-20%) whole clusters, but these remain deep, fleshy wines. The Pinots were bottled early, in July, to capture as much freshness as possible. Although there are plenty of highlights among this year's new releases, I tend to gravitate towards wines that balance the natural Aubert richness with nuance, as these are invariably the most interesting Chardonnays and Pinots in the lineup. In addition to the 2016s, Aubert also opened several older vintages of his Chardonnay Lauren, which I have included in this article to give readers greater perspective on how the wines age.

(Originally published in Sonoma Preview: January 2018 New Releases)