Occidental - Bodega Headlands Vineyard - Cuvée Elizabeth - Pinot Noir 2020
Occidental is located in the town of Bodega, Sonoma, California . It's owned by Steve Kistler , of Kistler Vineyards fame. Steve Kistler began developing a passion for coastal vineyard wines during his career at Ridge. In 1995, he and Warren Dutton planted 3.5 acres of Pinot Noir on Taylor Lane and named it Occidental Vineyard. In 1999, he purchased the 40-hectare Bodega Headlands property where he planted 8 hectares of Pinot Noir in 2001. Following several purchases and new plantings of Pinot Noir, he founded Occidental in 2011, the new Kistler family estate dedicated to the production of Pinot Noir from the Freestone-Western region. The team is still made up of the same people who have worked with Steve for over thirty years.
Occidental wines are produced from vineyards located on a southwest-facing ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean, just outside the town of Bodega. This ridge and surrounding headlands mark the western boundary of the West Freestone region and are among the coldest and late maturing sites. All the fruits are harvested at night and arrive fresh at the cellar the next morning. The fruits are carefully sorted into clusters before destemming then into individual berries a second time in order to leave as many whole, uncrushed berries as possible in each fermenter. Each plot of vineyard is fermented separately to capture as much of the site's individual character as possible. The fruit is intentionally not cold macerated before fermentation. The ambient temperature in the fermentation tanks allows the fruit to gradually warm up; this activates the native yeasts, fermentation begins in 7 to 9 days and is completed in less than three weeks. Punching down is only used when necessary to distribute the heat of fermentation, ensuring gentle extraction. Once fermentation is complete, the vats are racked and only the free-run wine is transferred by gravity into François Frères barrels (25% new) to age in a naturally cold underground cellar. Native malolactic fermentations generally begin around the end of December and end in late spring of the following year. The wine remains unracked until November, when it is transferred directly to the bottling tank and bottled unfined and unfiltered with a minimum level of SO2.
Grape variety: 100% Pinot Noir