2011 Pinot Noir Anderson Valley

This has to be one of the most schizophrenic wineries in California.On the one hand are mass-production, almost shockingly consistent and high-quality regional wines, which are made in quantities as high as 5,000,000+ (for the Sonoma Coast chardonnay), while on the other hand some bottlings are made in numbers smaller than those of boutique wineries.I suspect that La Crema's straight Sonoma Coast wines, in particular, don't get the respect that they deserve simply because of their ubiquity, but I can't think of any other large-production, widely distributed California wines that deliver such consistent quality.Elizabeth Grant-Douglas, who has been with La Crema since 2001, became the winemaker in 2010, and her wines show a restraint and elegance that belie the notion that wines made in high volume must be, by commercial necessity, obvious and even dumbed down.On the contrary, every wine in the La Crema lineup is on the tightly wound side in general and in 2011 in particular."It's a vintage that's defining character is spiciness," Elizabeth told me."They're not wines for people who want to be blown away by richness and power, which isn't what we do anyway," she added.