2021 Rhys Vineyards Pinot Noir Bearwallow Vineyard Anderson Valley 750 ml

The Rhys name comes up whenever someone evokes the greatest Pinot Noirs of California. Eric Asimov of the New York Times proclaimed Rhys to be “among the best American Pinot Noirs” over a decade ago—after just three vintages—and their reputation and rarity have only grown since. Elin McCoy wrote in Bloomberg that Rhys Pinots are “the closest yet to a California version of great Burgundy.” 

Rhys founder Kevin Harvey was convinced his Santa Cruz Mountains home near the San Andreas fault—where colliding tectonic plates have surfaced an incredible range of soils—held unlimited Pinot Noir potential, so he planted it to vine, then sought out more sites. And although most of Rhys’s stunning, steep, and remote vineyards are in the Santa Cruz Mountains, they’ve long relied on Anderson Valley’s Bearwallow Vineyard for one of their most recognizable single-vineyard wines. 

The vines at Bearwallow include six acres planted in 2000—eight years before Rhys purchased it—and 25 more, planted shortly after the acquisition. The parcel is extremely steep, and rich in complex Bearwallow-Wolfey soils.  

Rhys ferments their wines in one-ton tanks, which offers two main benefits: First, it facilitates minute batches of wine that express the vineyards’ varied terroirs. Second, it allows Rhys to work primitively, crushing grapes by foot and draining the tanks by gravity rather than relying on mechanical methods. This affords the grapes an extremely gentle journey to the barrels. Made out of three- and four-year air-dried French oak, the cooperage is remarkably consistent, and does not impart overwhelming oak.

This level of care comes together with incomparable terroir to yield wines that have quickly become a phenomenon.