2018 Hahn SLH Pinot Noir Estate Grown Santa Lucia Highlands

2018 Hahn Slh Pinot Noir Estate Grown Santa Lucia Highlands

2018 Hahn Slh Pinot Noir Estate Grown Santa Lucia Highlands Aromas of bright red cherry, strawberry with hints of earth, spices, and toasty oak. An explosion of red fruit including strawberry, cherry and raspberry welcome the palate finish of this 2018 wine with refined tannins and a soft mouthfeel.

Hahn

It was our founder Nicky Hahn who suggested that the Santa Lucia Highlands be deemed a unique winegrowing district. In 1991, three years after he and fellow vintners made their appeal, the federal government approved the Highlands as an official American Viticultural Area (AVA).
Today, we produce our Hahn SLH Pinot Noir and Chardonnay entirely from our estate, in this breathtakingly beautiful region of Monterey County. The fruit grows in our family-owned vineyards and the wine is barrel-aged in the winery’s cellar.

When it’s time to blend the wine and get it in the bottle, our winemaker Paul Clifton chooses the barrels that he feels epitomize the aromas, flavors and structure of Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highland. We deem only a very limited number of barrels worthy to carry the SLH label.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is the dominant red wine grape of Burgundy, now adopted (and extensively studied) in wine regions all over the world. The variety’s elusive charm has carried it to all manner of vineyards.

These extend from western Germany (as Spätburgunder) and northern Italy to Chile, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. California, Oregon and New Zealand are arguably the greatest centers for the grape outside its home territory. However great Pinot Noir is made in all of these territories.

The essence of Pinot Noir wine is its aroma of red berries and cherry (fresh red cherries in lighter wines and stewed black cherries in weightier examples). Many of the more complex examples show hints of forest floor. Well-built Pinot Noirs, particularly from warmer harvests, suggest leather and violets, sometimes recalling Syrah.

There are two theories regarding the Pinot name. One is that it came about because their bunches are similar in shape to a pine cone (pinot in French). It may derive, however, from a place name in France such as Pinos or Pignols from where cuttings were obtained. Pignols in the Auvergne, for example, has cultivated Pinot since the Middle Ages.

It was previously believed that Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Précoce (Frühburgunder) et al were members of a “”Pinot Family”” of distinct grape varieties. But DNA profiling has shown them to share the same genetic fingerprint. Thus, they should properly be considered as mutations or clones of a common variety.