2017 Twomey Cellars Pinot Noir Anderson Valley 750 ml

A month ago when the phone rang, it was Twomey’s Matt Duncan (who’s family also produces Cabernet-icon Silver Oak) calling with an exclusive invitation to visit the new winery that his family just purchased in Anderson Valley. We cleared our schedule. For two hours, with Matt driving, we chatted non-stop about the magnificence of Anderson Valley, agreeing it holds the secrets to California’s future of truly fine Pinot Noir. 

The Duncans do not submit their wines for scores, preferring to let the wines speak for themselves. We tasted this release at the new winery and were impressed with its tight-knit layers of red, black, and blue fruits, and its cedar spices. We secured all we could, and be warned: This might be your only shot at securing some of the Duncan’s tiny-production north coast Pinot Noir beyond a restaurant markup.   

Eventually, Duncan turned off Highway 121 onto an unpaved road, which stopped at a point 16 miles from the Pacific Ocean, just 1,500 feet away from Roederer’s Anderson Valley winery. As we stepped out of the car, the first thing we noticed was the quiet calm of the place beneath a perfect blue dome sky, with estate vines soaking up vivid rays from a high sun. Then our eyes caught the entrance to caves, and after a moment taking stock of the winery, Vanessa Hart, Twomey’s associate winemaker, emerged.  

“This,” said Matt, with arms outstretched toward the building, “is the next 20 years of Twomey.” He introduced us to Hart and we all walked and talked. “You passed the Ferrington Vineyard a few miles back,” Hart explained, pointing north, “and up the road is our estate Monument Vineyard. This new winery allows us to pick our Anderson Valley fruit and make the wine within minutes of our vineyards,” she said.  

After an hour on site, it was clear to us that this purchase was about much more than saving time trucking a few tons of grapes to their winery in Healdsburg. No—the Duncans are looking to cement a reputation in Pinot Noir as golden as their Silver Oak Cabernets, and owning this facility is step one in the long game toward that unquestionable position. 

For one thing, the cellars on site are home to more small-lot 2.5- and 6-ton stainless steel fermenters than most wineries dream of owning. For makers of Pinot Noir, coaxing out micro-nuances from small blocks of fruit is a key component to fashioning real complexity. “Our new site has many aspects and varying blocks and clones and so the plan is to break down the uniqueness of each of these blocks,” explained Hart. 

After four harvests working directly with Merry Edwards, Hart has mastered the art of making profoundly rich and powerful Pinots. She’s also made more restrained, elegant wines at Repris, and so she’s got a lot of tricks in her Pinot Noir toolkit. We piled in her vineyard truck to tour the newly-acquired 40-acre estate vineyard. “Roederer, Husch, and Goldeneye are all neighbors,” she said, pulling up to the zenith. We could see Roederer’s roof below.

We made our way back to the tasting room, which is bare today, save for a picnic table, and Matt produced a bottle of their newest release—a 2017 Twomey Cellars Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley. “Our number one priority is to make a wine we want to drink with friends and family,” said Duncan. “We’re not trying to make a Burgundian style or Carneros style Pinot here—that’s not right. Anderson Valley is special for its uniform soils and climate, which produce ripe fruit and vibrant fresh acidity.”

This is delicate Pinot with serious intensity. Aged 24 months in 30 percent new French oak barrels, the 2017 Twomey shows crimson-purple and magenta colors in the glass, markers of the warm 2017 vintage. This is a stand-out bottling with extremely fresh and vibrant dark berry aromas, deep forest and cedar spices, and just a hint of Anderson Valley pine. Fresh and lively red fruit redolent of wild strawberry and cranberry is a marker of the warmer Ferrington site, which mingles with dark black cherry and blue fruit courtesy of the cooler-climate Monument vineyard.

With Twomey’s 20th-anniversary vintage looming, the winery is positioning itself as the next Kosta Browne or Merry Edwards of close-to-the-source, artisan, world-class California Pinot Noir. For lovers of cult-California Pinot, all we can say is get on the list now or risk running into a lengthy wait.