2022 Pinot Noir Estate Reserve

These new releases from Hirsch will give readers a very good idea of what the 2022 and 2023 vintages have in store. In 2022, considerable shatter decimated Pinot Noir yields by close to 50%. A brief heat wave in mid-August saw temperatures reach the low 90s over a four-day period. Temperatures soared over Labor Day weekend, all the way up to 102°F on September 5. By this point, all the main blocks for the top wines had been picked. A day later, temperatures reached an unprecedented 108.8°F.

Jasmine Hirsch and consulting winemaker Michael Cruse fermented the wines a bit cooler than most years. The 2022s were done with fully destemmed fruit, as has been the practice here for several years. Yields were so small that some blocks were co-fermented. The Bohan-Dillon, Family Farm and San Andreas spent 11 months in barrel, while all the other Pinots saw 18 months in wood.

The 2022s Pinots are strong across the board, with a few that are truly exceptional, including the Raschen Ridge. In broad terms, the wines are quite dense texturally. It is a year in which the style of the vintage dominates over the character of each wine, not entirely, but much more so than in years like 2021. The 2023s I tasted for this report are all much lighter wines that show the mid-weight structure of this cool, late-ripening year.