2018 Pinot Noir Highland Divide

This is a stellar set of 2023s from Andy Smith and Jenna Davis at DuMOL. Yields were low for Chardonnay but bountiful for Pinot Noir to the point of requiring considerable thinning of the crop. The Chardonnays are glorious, rich but not heavy, and incredibly expressive of place. That’s a pretty appealing combination in my book. A few of the Chardonnays are in bottle, but most will be bottled this winter. The Pinot Noirs might be even more impressive. They saw 18-21 days on the skins followed by very slow, gradual malolactic fermentations, with no added SO2 in aging until racking. The Bressay, MacIntyre and DuMOL Estate Pinots are all magnificent in the early going. Most of the Pinots had not been bottled at the time of my tastings. I will follow up once I have had a chance to taste the finished wines.

Winemaker/Co-owner Andy Smith and Associate Winemaker Jenna Davis presented a breathtaking range of 2021s. I was blown away by the wines I tasted from DuMOL this year. Two thousand twenty-one is one of the greatest vintages I have tasted here. That is evident from the very first wines in this lineup. Despite drought conditions, the wines retain terrific acidity and tons of nuance. Interestingly, Smith reported that wines extracted easily in 2021. The Chardonnays are incredibly pure and brilliant. It's much the same in the Pinots, a stunning collection of wines that reaches its apogee with the Pinot Noir MacIntyre, one of the greatest California Pinots I have ever tasted. The theme of delineation and vibrancy continues through to the Syrahs and Cabernets. Most of the 2021s were in tank, hence scores are in parentheses. This is a very special set of wines that readers will not want to miss.

Andy Smith and his team turned out a positively stellar set of 2020 Sonoma wines in what was one of the most challenging years ever. To be sure, the 2020s are on the lighter side, the result of drought and heat that shocked the vines, plus the necessity of harvest that was accelerated in some spots to avoid fires. But the wines are clean and expressive.

This is a pretty remarkable set of new releases from DuMOL. The Pinots achieved a level of richness that was not easy in a year with a fair amount of rain early in the season, while the Syrahs and Chardonnays are terrific. Winemaker Andy Smith describes 2019 as a year with uneven flowering, especially in Pinot and Syrah, which resulted in small bunches and naturally low yields. Vineyards required just one pass to adjust crop levels, as opposed to three in 2018. On paper 2019 is a vintage with low acids for the Chardonnays vis-à-vis 2018 and lower tannins for the Pinots as well. In my view, though, the biggest driver of style at DuMOL is an emphasis on freshness and energy that defines the wines today as compared to a decade ago, when the wines were much more opulent and oaky. Another key development has been DuMOL’s transformation into an estate winery. In the early days all of the fruit here was purchased. Today, nearly all the Pinot and Syrah are estate, as is more than half of the Chardonnay.

Over the years, I have learned to allow for plenty of time for my tastings at DuMol. I was super-impressed with the wines I tasted on my last visit. Andy Smith continues to grow the range thoughtfully. The Chardonnays and Pinots remain the strong suits, mostly because they form the core of the range and have really been fine tuned over time. The 2017 Chardonnays have turned out just as well as I had hoped they would. The wines are rich, deep and full of character. Today, I favor the 2017s over the 2018s, which come across as lighter. Then again, the Chardonnays see pretty long élevage (by California standards) of 11 months in oak and 6 months in steel (for the vineyard designates) so there is plenty of time for the 2018s to perhaps gain a bit more dimension. The two vintages appear closer in quality for Pinot Noir. Smith opted to handle the 2018s very gently in the cellar, and did half the number of punchdowns than the norm. Both the 2017s and 2018s are vivid and super-expressive. I favor 2018 over 2017 for the Cabernets and Syrahs, as the longer and more benign growing season was clearly more favorable for both varieties.

My tasting at Du Mol was one the highlights of my January trip to Sonoma. Andy Smith describes 2016 as a classic California vintage with lower acidities than the 2015, which I suspect is more a reflection of the timing of picking decisions rather than a reflection of the vintages themselves. Regardless, 2016 and 2015 are two fabulous back to back vintages at Du Mol. This range is seriously impressive. The 2016 Chardonnays were all in tank when I tasted them, while the 2016 Pinots and Cabernets were still in oak.