Winery - Hartford
* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Four different clones are separately fermented and then blended to make this unique bottling. An expansive nose shows vibrant pineapple, peach, and orange fruit with lemondrop and butterscotch accents. It’s rich and mouthfilling, like a bite of banana cream pie, and turns maybe a bit orangey-sweet. Shy on subtlety, it packs in a lot of juicy flavor.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
An intensely fragrant floral, ginger, peach, lemon-lime and orange-spice bouquet ushers in this smooth, well-structured wine. The palate shows intricately meshed orange, butterscotch and toasted nut flavors, offset by angular, racy mineral accents. Finishes long and crisp, with refined pineapple, citrus and stony flavors. Enjoyable now but still tight, this should offer even more in two years.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
There’s a sweet fruit and pastry quality to this wine that’s reminiscent of a cherry tart, with its vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon and smoky buttery pie crust flavors. It’s very delicious but also brilliantly structured as a wine, with fine tannins and a sunburst of citrusy acids. One of the best Carneros Pinots of the vintage, it will provide pleasurable drinking now–2013 at the least.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
One of the ripest of Hartford’s new Pinots, this is a full-bodied and very rich wine. It offers extreme flavor in place of subtlety, offering a massive palate wash of blackberries and cherries that veers into Lifesaver candy. The bet is ageability. Hold until after 2011.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
The Jackson and Hartford families established this vineyard on the far Sonoma Coast in hopes of crafting Pinot Noir at the limits of its ability to ripen. The magnificent 2007 vintage has resulted in a wine of unusual tension. It’s very ripe in black and red cherry pie filling and sweet oak flavors, but retains the acidity of its cool-climate origins, and even offers a feral taste of bloody meat. Drink this impressive, complex wine now and through 2015.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
The vineyard is near Occidental, in the cooler southwestern part of the valley, and you can taste the fog and the sea and crisp nights in the acidity, like biting into a Gravenstein apple. Yet this perfect vintage has resulted in perfect fruit. It’s hard to imagine richer blackberry, cherry and licorice flavors. Impeccable and impressive, but young. Best in the narrow window of 2011–2013.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Part of the Jess Jackson empire of wineries, Hartford has a stellar record over the years across everything it produces, and this Chardonnay doesn’t disappoint. It’s bone dry and high in acidity, with a stony minerality that frames controlled peach, pear and mango fruit. The wine has that hard-to-define quality of elegant class.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
The grapes seem like they were picked earlier than others, making for a lean-style Pinot Noir that’s high in acids and minerality. It’s almost austere, although maybe “restrained” is a better word. Dry and tannic, but with a deep core of cherry compote fruit, the wine needs a little time. Should begin to blossom by 2007 and drink well through 2012.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
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