2022 OLG Our Lady of Guadalupe Vineyard Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills 750 ml

Dave Phinney—the visionary behind Orin Swift and The Prisoner—has sourced vineyards in up and down California. Napa Valley. Sonoma. Mendocino. Santa Barbara. Widely acclaimed wines, all of them. And yet none of those vineyards have been his own, planted and dialed in to his winemaking specifications.

That’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Vineyard, and the 2022 OLG Pinot is its layered, aromatic crown jewel. 

Phinney is no stranger to excellent Central Coast vineyards, but it was this row-crop farm in Sta. Rita Hills, complete with rustic barns, that captured his boundless imagination. After purchasing it in 2015, his team spent two years renewing the soil with compost and cover crops before planting a single vine. They selected Pinot clones for each specific site, paired rootstocks with various soils and exposures, and laid out blocks the match fermenter size. 

It was everything the iconoclast winemaker needed to turn out showstoppers. 

And with the 2022 OLG Pinot Noir, he has delivered. It’s masterfully balanced, showing Phinney’s trademark opulence while maintaining the region’s vibrant acidity. Aromatically rich with roses, kola nut, pomegranate, black tea, and forest floor, it hits the palate with expressive fruit and spice, cast over a bed of silky tannins. As Decanter put it in their 96-point review, “it leaves one in a perpetual state of wanting for more.”

Sta. Rita Hills sites give notoriously low yields, and that’s especially true at OLG. The sandy-loam and diatomaceous earth soils here—plus buffeting coastal winds—stress the vines into producing tiny, ridiculously concentrated clusters. In 2022, that fruit gave Phinney everything he needed for a truly exquisite Pinot. For a man with myriad achievements, this might be his most personal.