2012 Pinot Noir West Block

Tom Rochioli calls 2012 a grower's dream, in the sense that "you didn't need to do anything, you could take a cruise" if getting a big crop was your agenda. Like most old-timers who tend to hedge rather than hype, he said that keeping yields in check was the key to success with '12. With that in mind, he expressed real affection for his 2011 pinots, which he thinks show "their place and real pinot style," which is not quite possible in hotter years.New oak continues to be dialed back here, which is a conscious effort on the part of Rochioli "to get the fruit out there" as much as possible, but he's also trying to make more elegant wines like the great Burgundies that he said turned him on to pinot in the first place.He's proud of his wines from the late 1990s and early 2000s but thinks that he's now getting closer to maximizing finesse over "massive fruit."There's no lack of natural acidity in his fruit, he said, "so reining in the ripeness is the real job."Incidentally, Rochioli said that he generally likes to drink his wines at "somewhere around six, seven or eight years," which he thinks is the sweet spot where the baby fat has fallen off but the fruit's still vibrant.

Tom Rochioli continues to produce benchmark Russian River Chardonnays and Pinots. In 2012s, the wines are a bit lighter in texture than normal, probably because of the naturally high yields of the vintage, something that is felt more in the Chardonnays than the Pinots. The wines were aged in 40-75% new oak and bottled in early to mid-December 2013. Readers who want to delve into the minutiae of vineyard blocks and clones should check out Rochioli's website, which is full of detailed information.