The Soberanes Vineyard is in the heart of the Santa Lucia Highlands, directly to the south of the Garys’ Vineyard.  This is one of our newer vineyards, with our first crop there being 2010.  We’ve often found that vineyards can do very well the first year or two but that they sometimes go into a “teenage stage” after a couple of vintages and attempt to ripen too much fruit and grow too much in the way of vegetation without having the root structure established to make that happen successfully (there are all sorts of teenage analogies here).  Fortunately, Mark Pisoni and Gary Franscioni, the growers at the Soberanes Vineyard, recognize this and make certain that the vines are not overly stressed in their youth, and this allows these vines to quickly bounce back and start producing truly world class grapes.  Soberanes is in that bounce-back stage now, with the quality of the wine from this vineyard only getting better and better.  The 2016 vintage is a combination of 667 clone fruit, which is one of the earliest ripening sections in all our Santa Lucia Highlands vineyards, and a section called “the Trees” which is one of the latest ripening.  This combination makes for some interesting blending sessions. Yet it seems to work out quite well.  The Soberanes Vineyard Pinot Noir shows a velvety texture, unique in our portfolio, along with bright acids and vibrant fruit.  It is, oddly, a bit more Rosella’s like in flavor that Garys’ (though Garys’ is right next door and Rosella’s is a mile away).  One thing we do know, it sure tastes fantastic.