2021 Pinot Noir Jensen Vineyard

Eighteen years into his tenure at Calera, Winemaker Mike Waller continues to work magic with this lauded site on Mt. Harlan in San Benito County (part of the greater Central Coast appellation). He’s clear about his target, noting, “My job is to preserve the integrity of Calera.” His method, informed by his late mentor and Calera mastermind Josh Jensen, is proven: keep it simple. Waller and his team make the wines in a full gravity-flow facility, typically vinifying the Pinot Noirs with 100% whole clusters and aging them in French oak for 18 months. I tasted the full slate of 2021 Pinot Noirs, in addition to a few 2022 whites and reds. The one takeaway? The 2021s need time, and a lot of it. These wines felt very backward and closed immediately after opening, but revisiting them 24 hours later told a much clearer story. Asked about the 2021s, Waller explains, “We were in a drought year with only ten inches of rain, and we started getting some heat during veraison. Our veraison period is typically seven or eight weeks, and in 2021, it was barely five or six. Things sped up really fast, and now the wines are closing down.” That said, these are excellent wines from Calera that display the hallmark mountain muscle and dark depths of fruit that make them so age-worthy. Give them as much time in the cellar as possible.