Wine Enthusiast | 95 Points
Evan’s Ranch Morgan’s Pinot Noir is named for my daughter Morgan, who is a fourth generation member of my family to be involved with our ranch and winery here in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley.
The grapes for the 2022 Morgan’s came from a steep, north-facing slope on Evan’s Ranch that boasts gravelly loam soils and dense plantings of ten high-quality clones of Pinot Noir. It is the middle slope on the ranch and, as is frequently the case in Burgundy, consistently yields the best grapes and wines.
We fermented the fruit, in traditional Burgundian fashion, in small open-top tanks with daily punchdowns to thoroughly macerate the juice and skins, then aged the wine in French oak barrels for 9 months before bottling it in August.
What’s special about Morgan’s Pinot Noir, aside from my daughter’s name adorning the label, is its amazing concentration and intensity of classic varietal aromas and flavors. Fresh, deep and dense, its lovely black raspberry, dark cherry, pomegranate and blackberry aromas mingle with enticing clove, mint leaf and tea spice scents in the delightfully fragrant, complex nose. On the palate, Morgan’s Pinot Noir is mouth-filling and richly textured with deeply concentrated cherry, raspberry, pomegranate and berry flavors that pick up zesty mineral and tea-leaf spice tones in the long, persistent finish. With bright acidity and round, supple tannins, this perfectly balanced, firmly structured wine is impressive now, but will reveal the full amplitude of its charms with another 3-5 years’ aging from its bottling date.
We hope you find it as special as we do.
Cheers!
Dan Gainey
Santa Ynez, California