2011 Pinot Noir Costalina

John Raytek is one of California's most promising young winemakers. Ceritas fans will be delighted to see five new Pinots in this range, all from sites with significant character and personality; Hellenthal, Porter-Bass, Elliott, Hacienda Sequoia and Pinnacle, plus new Chardonnays from Peter Martin Ray and Pinnacle. Raytek is among the producers who prefers to pick on the earlier side of things. His wines are defined by striking energy, tension and minerality. As one might reasonably expect, the 2012s are a little more generous and resonant than the steely 2011s. They were also picked a bit riper, reflecting the respective personalities of both years. The Chardonnays see a typical Burgundy-influenced aging regime that calls for 12 months in barrel (all neutral) followed by 6-7 months in tank, which is where the 2012s were aging when I tasted them. Barrel regimes for Pinots vary from wine to wine, with new oak at about 25%. As a general rule, rackings during aging are kept to the bare minimum. Unfortunately I was not able to taste the 2012 Porter-Bass and Heintz Chardonnays, as the malos were slow and not done at the time of my tastings. Readers who have not checked out the Ceritas wines yet owe it to themselves to do so. There is so much to like here.

Proprietor John Raytek is one of this country's most promising young winemakers. His professional resume includes a stint as sommelier at the Little Nell in Aspen. Later he was assistant winemaker at Copain and also spent time at Rhys. Raytek is married to Phoebe Bass, whose family owns the Porter-Bass Vineyard, but adds he gets no preferential treatment when it comes to buying fruit!

John Raytek will be moving into Carlisle's former space at Punchdown Cellars, which will facilitate further production, and he's now fully settled into his winemaker role with LIOCO, which "just about maxes things out" for him now.(His only consulting gig now is for Barbed Oak Vineyard, a new project in the cool Bennett Valley.)Two thousand and eleven gave the coldest recorded growing season in Sonoma since 1943, Raytek told me, "and it seemed like time was standing still" in the vines.From a stylistic standpoint, that suited Raytek just fine "because it meant that the wines are cool, sharply defined and alive," which is the sort of wine he's shooting for.The downside to the chilly season is that with production levels off and ripening difficulties in the always-cool Escarpa vineyard, the decision was made to make a single bottling of pinot, called Costalina, with the Escarpa fruit as the backbone.