Napa Valley's Los Carneros Appellation PINOT NOIR HEAVEN

Mira Advani Honeycutt discovers heavenly Pinots in a slice of traditional Cabernet Sauvignon country

- Mira Advani Honeycutt

California’s Napa Valley is renowned for its world-class Cabernet Sauvignon wines, rivalling those of Bordeaux in quality and price. Cab is King here. It’s not known as just Cab, but rather Napa Cab!

Yet there’s more to Napa than Cab. Napa Valley’s Los Carneros sub-appellation is home to sublime Pinot Noir, a grape variety not generally associated with Napa. Two adjacent and famous wine valleys, Napa and Sonoma, converge in this one American Viticultural Area (AVA), which is home to some three dozen wineries, most of them residing on the Napa side.

Located at the southern and westernmost edge of Napa Valley, and stretching into Sonoma Valley, the cool region of Carneros (as locals call it) is influenced by sea air funneling in from San Pablo Bay and the Petaluma Gap to the West. Indeed, this is pure Pinot country and one of the early pioneers of this Burgundian variety in the Golden State.

The region’s rich history dates back to the 1800s, long before it received its AVA status in 1983, owing to an influx of early settlers drawn to the climate and the fertile land. Later, in the 1930s, Carneros Winery (now Bouchaine Vineyards) became the first post-Prohibition winery, followed by the likes of Louis M Martini and André Tchelistcheff, the latter being instrumental in establishing the Carneros AVA. The last three decades have drawn European families from France (Domaine Carneros and HdV), Spain (Artesa) and Switzerland (Cuvaison) to the region.

Where there’s Pinot (as it’s popularly called) one also finds its white mate, Chardonnay. Both these Burgundian varieties thrive in the area’s clay-dominated shallow soil. The Pinots express the purity of darker fruits, their floral brightness layered with a beguiling acidity. The Chardonnays too express a vibrant acidity, supported by bright pear-apple fruitiness.