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Saint Georges Pinot Noir hails primarily from the very old, organically managed Besson Vineyard, established in the early 1900s at the southern reaches of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The site is at the base of the mountains and is marginally too low and on the wrong side of the road to be included in the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. Instead, the wine is labelled as a homage to George Besson, with whom Birichino has worked for more than 20 years. The site, previously planted to Bordeaux varieties, was grafted over to Pinot Noir in the 1980s with cuttings given to George’s late father by the legendary Josh Jensen of Calera. The roots are old and sit in porous soils of decomposed granite and clay. It’s quite a cool site, heavily influenced by the mountain and the winds and fog passing through the Hecker Pass Gap from Monterey Bay, just 30 kilometres away. Winemaker Alex Krause tells us that Pinot Noir from this site has a “distinctive floral character”. “It’s never super dark; it’s actually quite pretty,” he says. “It’s the heart of this wine.” Seven barrels of Pinot Noir from two sites in the Gabilan Range in the Chalone AVA were added to the blend, bringing a different soil, flavour and texture profile to the mix. The Rodnick and Boer vineyards―from which the Birichino boys make single-site wines―sit at much higher elevation (500 to 600 metres) and the vines are rooted in limestone, dolomite and granite, bringing a “stony resolve” to the blend.
As is the Birichino way, new wood, extended maceration and long maturation were avoided to preserve the fruit's fresh, vivid, savoury nature. The wine fermented spontaneously with 30% stems, layered throughout the ferment after destemming, followed by 10 months in old wood.