Melville Estate Pinot Noir Sandy's Block 2023

Melville Estate Pinot Noir Sandy's Block 2023

Sta Rita Hills

Melville Estate Pinot Noir Sandy's Block 2023

Sta Rita Hills
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94+ points Vinous Media
Drinking window: 2026 - 2035
The 2023 Pinot Noir Estate Sandy's Block is a blend of four clones planted in pure sand. Fresh, spiced and lifted, it boasts a delicate, effusive, floral-tinged aromatic profile with lots of tension and an air of seriousness. There's ample complexity under the hood here. The 2023 is a little reticent today, but time should help to unlock some of its charms and build some fruit weight. This is a very pretty, classically built wine with upside potential.

Chad Melville’s 2023s are bright, elegant and finessed, as they typically are, but the cool growing season really heightened their sense of delicacy. They’re also all a little reticent at this stage and could use some time to relax in bottle. The wines are all aged in neutral oak with a healthy proportion of whole clusters and no added SO2. Melville explained, “When you’re using whole clusters it’s dangerous. You have to match the intensity of the fruit with the percentage of clusters, then it works. It’s easy to go overboard.” Overboard is not a concern in this range, which deftly integrates the spicy, lifted character from the stems across the board. Of note, Melville is experimenting with packaging some of his entry-level wines in 3L bag-in-box for restaurant distribution and potentially direct-to-consumer sales. I believe innovations like this are important in today’s ever-changing wine scene and certainly wouldn’t be upset to have a box of his Estate Pinot Noir in my fridge. - Billy Norris August 2025
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