The most backward, structured, and most difficult wine to evaluate is the dark plum/ruby/purple 2008 Pinot Noir Turner Vineyard. This wine is tannic, slightly austere, but exhibits loads of earthiness with hints of fresh mushrooms, roasted herbs, forest floor, and red and black fruits. Give it another 1-2 years of bottle age and drink it over the following 7-8.
This is the personal project of Ron Melville’s son, Chad. He has turned in some impressive efforts in previous vintages and the 2008s are, for the most part, as good as his brilliant 2007s. Chad Melville tends to use approximately 50% stems/whole clusters for all of his Pinot Noirs with the exception of the Las Hermanas, which is only 25% whole cluster. His alcohols are moderate to moderately high by Santa Rita Hills standards – 14.1% is the lowest (for the Melville) to 14.7% the highest (for the Turner Vineyard). They are all 100% Pinot Noir and mostly made from various clones, including the newer Dijon clones, 115 and 667, and some of the older California clones such as Pommard. His oak regime is different from that of his mentors, Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton, since he prefers to use 20-25% new oak, except in the case of the single-barrel (new) wine, the “228.”
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