2013 Couloir Wines Chileno Valley Vineyard Pinot Noir Marin County 750 ml

The Guru of Marin County and the Turley Alum

Mark Pasternak owns and farms Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Marin County and, over the last 40 years, has become THE authority for Pinot just south of Sonoma. His client list is star-studded. In 1991, when George Lucas sought to plant vines on Skywalker Ranch, he called Pasternak. The Pinot Noir Mark grows on Devil’s Gulch is contracted to just two producers well known to WineAccess members: Dan Dutton of Dutton-Goldfield and Sean Thackrey of Orion, Andromeda, and Pleiades XXIII fame. So when Wine Enthusiast named a Marin County Pinot Noir a “Cellar Selection” without mentioning Dutton, Thackrey, or even Skywalker Ranch, eyebrows were raised.

Instead, stealing the spotlight was Jon Grant’s 2013 Couloir Pinot Noir from the Pasternak-farmed Chileno Valley Vineyard, the “amazing” and “spectacular” wine that also garnered a 94-point score from the PinotFile. We had to see what the fuss was about. Jon answered our call on the first ring and invited us to his tasting room in Tiburon.

We learned that Grant, a former pro skier, had moved to Napa in 1997 to pursue his dreams of making single-vineyard Pinot Noirs. He landed a gig as a tour guide at Robert Mondavi Winery, and within months was dabbling in winemaking, working with To Kalon fruit, doing viticultural research in the cellars. A decade later, after stints at Corison, PlumpJack, and a lengthy stay as assistant winemaker at Turley Wine Cellars, Jon was ready to forge his own path.

With Ehren Jordan still at the helm of Turley, Jon negotiated space to craft his first vintage. Turley proved to be quite the incubator: One of Jon’s colleagues, the brilliant young Jamie Whetstone, had also been given cellar space to make his first wines. Thomas Rivers Brown, now known for his 100-point wines, had also cut his teeth there, just before Grant arrived.

Pouring from behind his tasting bar, Jon put the Marin Pinot scene in the right context. “If you want great Cabernet you go to see David Abreu — you pay to play,” he said. We nodded in full agreement. “In Marin County, it’s Mark Pasternak, who owns Devil’s Gulch.” Grant badly wanted fruit from Chileno Valley Vineyard, but Pasternak, the guru of Marin County Pinot, didn’t have any to sell him — everything was contracted out. “It took two and half years to get Mark to agree to sell me Pinot,” said Grant. “And I won’t tell you how much I paid for it — but it was worth every zero.”

The Chileno Valley Vineyard sits on the southern edge of what is the Petaluma Gap, southwest of the city of Petaluma, and perched on a sandstone, clay, and loamy bench in one of the most windswept parts of western Marin. Ocean mists funneling in from the Pacific “actually deposit salt on the soils, vines, and fruit in Chileno,” Grant explained. We swirled his Pinot in our Riedel glasses, sipped, and were struck by the vibrancy, the freshness of flavors — and the RADIANT salinity. For a Marin County Pinot, this was drinking like a youthful Gevrey-Chambertin.

Robert Parker declared “2013 may turn out to be the finest vintage I have experienced in tasting North Coast varietals over the last 37 years.” We’re glad Parker made sure to write “North Coast” and not Napa alone, because Anderson, Alexander, Sonoma, and Marin all rose to new heights in 2013.

The 2013 Couloir Wines Chileno Valley Vineyard Pinot Noir is deep ruby with garnet hues. Gorgeous, vibrant fruit and floral aromas mingle with whispers of smoke, forest, and pine needle. Complex, juicy, and refined flavors of sweet and sour red cherry and dark berry flavors flood the palate; sweet tannin and an absolutely luscious core gives way to a dazzling, sublimely salty mineral thread, and mouthwatering acidity leads to a finish with great tension and persistence.

A 94-point Pinot fashioned by a Turley-trained winemaker with grapes from the Pinot Noir guru of Marin County. Just 200 cases produced. 700 bottles are earmarked for WineAccess. $44 on release, just $24.99/bottle for one of the best new Pinots we’ve discovered all year.