2017 Aubert Pinot Noir UV Vineyard

(95 Points) The 2017 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard is medium ruby-purple colored with exuberant redcurrants, black cherries and black raspberries notes with hints of violets, chocolate box and rose hip tea. The palate is full-bodied with a firm frame of fine-grained tannins and amazing freshness, finishing very long and juicy.

During my tasting visit to the winery in August 2018, Mark Aubert informed me that they were all done picking before the fires in 2017. In fact, I had visited Aubert in 2017 at the end of August, which was the first day of their harvest. Harvest went on for about four more weeks. Marc informed me that the winery was closed up tight during the fires to prevent smoke infiltration. Power went off for about an hour but they have a back up generator, so there was little if any impact on the wines. Ultimately, wines don't lie, and the 2017 tank samples that I tasted with Marc back up up all the information he gave me.

As usual, these 2017 Chardonnays took 4-6 months to complete fermentation. Therefore, Marc pointed out, the alcohol accumulates slowly and integrates very well over that time. It's worth noting that Marc doesn’t rack super clean, offering a little sur lie savoriness to the wines. As always, he never filters anything.

The Pinots saw about 10-15% whole cluster and were bottled in June 2018. All the 2017 Chardonnays will be bottled in mid-December 2018. There is an incredible clarity and depth of flavors revealed in the Chardonnays in particular already and, as readers will take away from my notes and scores, I couldn't be more excited about what 2017 has delivered in the Aubert vineyards.  The Wine Advocate