2021 Oceano Pinot Noir Spanish Springs Vineyard San Luis Obispo Coast 750 ml

Near Pismo Beach along the San Luis Obispo coastline, the surfing is great, the clam chowder is phenomenal, and the Pinot Noir—well, it’s the stuff of dreams.

The “gorgeous” 2021 Oceano Pinot Noir Spanish Springs Vineyard was grown here, from a single site 1.5 miles from the Pacific. Walking the vineyard, you can smell the briny ocean breeze and hear the crunch of marine shale and sandstone under your feet. 

All that cold salt air and mineral-rich soil invest this bottle with saline finesse, while the long growing season leaves the wine sleekly muscled, juicy as a fresh-picked strawberry, and delicately perfumed. It’s the kind of stuff that simply melts on your tongue.

We first encountered this wine in a hushed, low-lit Manhattan dining room that is worlds away from the raw, pounding waves of Pismo Beach. In an evening filled with exquisite plates and pairings that have earned Michelin stars for years, the 2021 Oceano Pinot Noir Spanish Springs Vineyard was the night’s greatest highlight. 

Oceano co-owner Rachel Martin fell in love with the Spanish Springs Vineyard on her first visit there. The vineyard’s proximity to the ocean, the rich clonal variety of Pinot Noir grown there, and the mix of hillsides and exposures guarantee the kind of complexity for which buyers pay top dollar.

The extended, cool growing season of 2021 allowed for one of the region’s latest harvests in recent memory, resulting in grapes that could boast both slowly accumulated sugars and bright, beautifully preserved acids. To capture all this natural beauty, Martin held nothing back in the cellar, employing whole-berry fermentation in tank followed by aging in Burgundy barrels for eight months.