by John Gilman, View From the Cellar (May/June 2021)

2019 Alesia Anderson Valley Chardonnay
The 2019 Alesia Anderson Valley bottling of chardonnay from Rhys Vineyards is beautifully floral out of the blocks this year, offering up a bright and very refined bouquet of apple, pear, fresh almond, acacia blossom, a hint of crème patissière, a lovely base of soil tones and a deft framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, zesty and focused, with an excellent core of fruit, lovely soil signature and a long, complex and balanced finish. This is a touch riper than the Santa Cruz Mountains bottling of Alesia this year, tipping the scales at an even thirteen percent alcohol and it is already wearing its heart on its sleeve, though it has the structure to also age beautifully. This may well be my favorite vintage yet of the Alesia Anderson Valley chardonnay! 2021-2035+.92.

2019 Alesia Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay
Now that the Alesia bottlings from Rhys Vineyards are all made from the younger vine production on their estate vineyards, these wines have moved up a level in overall quality. The 2019 Santa Cruz Mountains chardonnay comes in at a svelte 12.4 percent octane in this vintage and offers up a lovely young nose of pear, green apple, lemon, salty soil tones, dried flowers, citrus peel and a hint of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and tightly-knit out of the blocks, with a good core, superb mineral drive and focus, zesty acids and a long, nascently complex and very promising finish. This could do with a year or two in the cellar to blossom properly and will be an excellent bottle in due course. 2023-2040. 92.

2019 Alesia Anderson Valley Pinot Noir
The 2019 Anderson Valley bottling of pinot noir from Alesia is gorgeous and one of the best wines I have yet tasted sold under the Alesia label from Rhys Vineyards. The bouquet is pure, youthful and beautifully precise, offering up scents of black cherries, pomegranate, a hint of beetroot, gamebird, woodsmoke, a superb base of soil tones, fresh herbs, espresso and a nice touch of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused, tangy and displays outstanding mid-palate depth, with a nice sense of imminent sappiness, lovely soil undertow, ripe, suave tannins and a long, vibrant and nascently complex finish. A very serious bottle of pinot in the making! 2028-2060. 93.

2019 Alesia Santa Cruz Mountain Pinot Noir
Similarly, the 2019 Santa Cruz Mountains pinot noir from Alesia has set the bar higher for subsequent vintages of this label than has ever been set before. The wine comes in at 13.2 percent octane and offers up a cool, soil-driven and very classy bouquet of sweet dark berries, cassis, raw cocoa, a beautiful array of spice tones (that hint at fresh nutmeg, cardamom and allspice), a marvelous base of stony soil, woodsmoke and a touch of cedar. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a very elegant profile, a lovely core of black fruit, excellent transparency and grip, fine-grained tannins and a long, poised and beautifully balanced finish. This is great juice! 2028-2060. 93+.

2019 Rhys Mt. Pajaro Chenin Blanc
The 2019 vintage of Mount Pajaro Chenin Blanc from Jeff Brinkman and the rest of the team at Rhys is quite low octane this year, tipping the scales at 12.25 percent alcohol. The wine is beautifully defined by its soil elements on the nose, wafting from the glass in a mix of quince, tart pear, salty minerality, white lilies, lemon peel, hints of the beeswax to come and just a touch of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is vibrant, fullish and beautifully transparent, with a fine core, excellent girdle of acidity, impeccable balance and a long, nascently complex and zesty finish. I love the structural tension of this wine on the backend, which augurs extremely well for its evolution in bottle. This is quite drinkable out of the blocks, but I would opt for tucking it away in the cellar for a few years and really let it blossom. 2024-2045. 93+.

2019 Rhys Bearwallow Vineyard Chardonnay
The 2019 Rhys Vineyards’ Bearwallow chardonnay is beautifully expressive aromatically right out of the blocks, jumping from the glass in a blend of apple, nectarine, salty soil tones, acacia blossoms, fresh almond and a deft touch of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a fine core, excellent mineral undertow, zesty acids and a long, beautifully balanced finish. The wine is a little more reserved on the palate than the nose, so I would give it a year or two in the cellar to let both facets completely blossom. I love the backend mineral drive here. 2023-2035+. 93.

2019 Rhys Mt. Pajaro Vineyard Chardonnay
The 2019 Mount Pajaro Vineyard bottling of chardonnay from Rhys Vineyards comes in this year at a svelte 12.7 percent alcohol and offers up a nascently complex bouquet of pear, green apple, white flowers, raw almond, a lovely base of minerality and a deft framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is bright, fullish and tightly-knit, with a good core, fine mineral drive and bounce, lovely focus and a long, balanced and zesty finish. This is still quite primary and needs some bottle age to start to blossom and reveal its secondary layering of complexity. It will be a very suave, complex and very classy middleweight in due course. 2023- 2040. 92+.

2019 Rhys Alpine Vineyard Chardonnay
The 2019 Alpine Vineyard bottling of chardonnay from Rhys is their lowest alcohol wine in the vintage, coming in at 12.1 percent alcohol. On the nose, the wine is simply loaded with personality, offering up a beautiful aromatic constellation of pear, passion fruit, fresh almond, apple blossoms, a touch of honeysuckle, lovely minerality and a dollop of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is zesty, medium-full, focused and beautifully balanced, with a good core, fine soil signature and grip and a long, nascently complex and bouncy finish. This is a lovely middleweight in the making. 2023-2035+. 92+.

2019 Rhys Horseshoe Vineyard Chardonnay
The 2019 Horseshoe Vineyard chardonnay from Rhys is one of the low octane whites from the winery in this vintage, as it comes in at a cool 12.3 percent. However, the wine is very expressive on the nose, wafting from the glass in a refined blend of apple, pear, fruit blossoms, a beautiful base of soil tones, a touch of hazelnut and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is vibrant, full-bodied and tightly-knit, with lovely intensity of flavor and transparency, a fine girdle of acidity and a long, nascently complex and promising finish. This will need a few years to open up, but should prove to be a long-lived and lovely middleweight once it is ready to drink. 2024-2035+. 93.

2019 Rhys Bearwallow Vineyard Pinot Noir
The 2019 Bearwallow Vineyard pinot noir from Jeff Brinkman and the cellar team at Rhys is a marvelous wine in the making. The bouquet shows plenty of red fruit in its gorgeous combination of pomegranate, red and black cherries, a very complex base of soil tones, just a hint of beetroot, raw cocoa, a very discreet foundation of new oak and a topnote of rose petals. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and complex, with superb transparency and grip, a lovely core of fruit, ripe, seamless tannins and a long, tangy and perfectly balanced finish. This has great backend lift and is going to be a stunning bottle when it is fully ready to drink. 2031-2070. 94+.

2019 Rhys Porcupine Hill Pinot Noir
The densely-planted Porcupine Hill section of the Bearwallow Vineyard has produced a stellar wine in 2019. The bouquet is quite a bit more black fruity out of the blocks than the regular Bearwallow, offering up scents of black cherries, sweet dark berries, beautifully complex soil tones, bitter chocolate, woodsmoke, a touch of fresh thyme, discreet floral notes redolent of peonies and a gentle framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is bright, young and full- bodied, with a superb core of fruit, lovely mineral undertow, ripe, well-integrated tannins and a long, nascently complex and extremely promising finish. This is going to take even a few more years to blossom than the regular Bearwallow, but it will be stellar juice when it is ready to drink. 2034-2070+. 94+.

2019 Rhys Bearwallow Vineyard Syrah
The 2019 vintage is the inaugural release of a Syrah bottling from the Bearwallow Vineyard in Anderson Valley. When I asked Jeff Brinkman about the wine, he observed that the syrah here “is something that we talked about putting in almost from day one- we bought the property in 2008- but it didn’t materialize until we had enough production from the new plantings (of pinot noir) which we put in, so that we could tear out one of the weaker original Pinot blocks” and replant that section to syrah. The parcel was planted with a selection massale taken from the syrah vines at Horseshoe Vineyard. The wine included fifty percent whole clusters this year and was raised entirely in older casks and thousand liter foudre. The 2019 Bearwallow Syrah is a bit riper than its 2018 counterpart from Horseshoe, as this wine comes in at 13.8 percent octane and offers up a beautiful bouquet of black raspberries, black cherries, pepper, a hint of dark chocolate, roasted meats and a fine base of soil. On the palate the wine is deep, full- bodied, focused and peppery in personality, with a fine core of fruit, lovely soil signature, ripe, firm tannins and a long, tangy and nascently complex finish. This is impeccably balanced and
will age superbly well, but will demand some cellaring time before it starts to drink with generosity. A great new addition to the firmament at Rhys! 2031-2065.  92+.

2019 Rhys Family Farm Pinot Noir
The 2019 Family Farm pinot noir is another one of the riper cuvées in the Rhys lineup this year, coming in at 13.8 percent alcohol in this vintage. The wine delivers a beautiful aromatic constellation of pomegranate, black cherries, complex soil tones, a touch of coffee bean, gentle smokiness, just a whisper of sweet herb tones, black tea and a lovely framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is ripe, focused and full, with an excellent core of black fruit, fine soil undertow, fine-grained tannins and a long, beautifully balanced, tangy and complex finish. This is a very lovely wine in the making, which will be approachable earlier than the Home Vineyard bottling, but really will need at least as much time in the cellar to really start to blossom. Fine juice here! 2026-2055+. 93.

2019 Rhys Home Vineyard Pinot Noir
The 2019 Home Vineyard pinot noir from Rhys is one of the ripest in the lineup in this vintage, coming in tipping the scales at 13.9 percent octane. That duly noted, the wine is beautifully pure, precise and well-measured on both the nose and palate, with the bouquet wafting from the glass in a lovely blend of sweet dark berries, black cherries, incipient notes of cola, bonfire, a touch of espresso, dark soil tones, sweet stems and a discreet foundation of new oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused and plush on the attack, with a fine core of fruit, good soil signature, ripe, suave tannins and a long, nascently complex and very nicely balanced finish. This is a fine bottle in the making, but it will want five to seven years in the cellar to start to display any of its secondary layers of complexity and for the backend tannins to soften up. 2026-2055+. 92+.

2019 Rhys Mt. Pajaro Vineyard Pinot Noir
The 2019 vintage of Mount Pajaro Vineyard pinot noir from Rhys is a very fine example of the vintage, coming in at 13.5 percent octane and delivering a young, vibrant and promising bouquet of dark berries, pomegranate, stony soil tones, a dollop of youthful stem tones, coffee bean, woodsmoke, a touch of graphite and a suave framing of spicy new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and beautifully transparent in profile, with well-integrated tannins, fine balance and grip and a long, nascently complex finish. This is the new kid on the block amidst the other Rhys pinot noir bottlings, but it is quickly playing catch up and is certainly at home amongst these other great cuvées. 2027-2065. 92.

2019 Rhys Skyline Vineyard Pinot Noir
As is so often the case, the 2019 Skyline pinot noir is a touch more black fruity than its siblings from the Alpine Vineyard. The bouquet is deep, pure and very promising, offering up scents of dark berries, black cherries, raw cocoa, stony minerality, a touch of graphite, a hint of chicory, some youthful stem tones, new oak and scents of bonfire in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, refined and full-bodied, with a good core of black fruit, ripe, seamless tannins, lovely focus and grip and a long, youthfully complex finish. This does not have quite the mid-palate stuffing of some of these other Rhys pinots in 2019, but I absolutely love its precision, balance and lightness of step and have a gut feeling that this may well be one of those wines that puts on a bit of weight with extended bottle age. Fine, fine juice. 2031-2075. 94.

2019 Rhys Alpine Vineyard Pinot Noir
The 2019 Alpine Vineyard bottling of pinot noir from the Rhys team is an excellent bottle in the making. The wine offers up a precise and nascently complex bouquet of red and black cherries, a hint of beetroot, sweet stem tones, woodsmoke, pigeon, a gorgeous base of soil, dark chocolate and a discreet foundation of new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, focused and plush with ripe fruit at the core, with still plenty of whole cluster influence, ripe, seamless tannins and a long, tangy and complex finish. This is a touch riper than the Swan Terrace bottling this year (not surprisingly, as the Swan Terrace faces due east), but at 13.3 percent octane, it is perfectly ripe and beautifully expressive of its underlying terroir. All this beautiful wine needs is time in the cellar to blossom. 2031-2075. 94.

2019 Rhys Swan Terrace Pinot Noir
The 2019 Swan Terrace bottling from Rhys, which hails from a parcel of vines in Alpine Vineyard with an easterly exposition and loads of morning sun, is simply gorgeous in this vintage. The wine is perfectly ripe at 12.8 percent and already very expressive aromatically, offering up a beautiful constellation of dark berries, black cherries, a touch of pomegranate, a complex base of soil tones, bitter chocolate, sweet stem tones, gamebird, a touch of cedary oak and plenty of smokiness in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and extremely elegant in profile, with a plump core of fruit, outstanding mineral undertow, ripe, firm tannins and a long, tangy and nascently complex finish. This is going to be simply stunning pinot when it is ready to drink, but it will need a nice sojourn in the cellar to soften up and start hitting on all cylinders. Great juice in the making! 2031-2075. 95.

2019 Rhys Alpine Hillside Pinot Noir
The 2019 Hillside bottling from Alpine Vineyard is a beautiful young pinot noir. The bouquet still shows a nice touch of its youthful stems from the whole clusters, but these are covered up by a refined blend of sweet dark berries, black plums, pomegranate, coffee bean, gamebird, a complex base of dark soil tones, a suave framing of new oak and the aforementioned sweet stem tones in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a superb core of fruit, great transparency and bounce, fine-grained tannins and a long, nascently complex and absolutely perfectly balanced finish. All this great bottle of pinot noir needs is time in the cellar to fully blossom! 2032-2075. 96.

2019 Rhys Horseshoe Vineyard Pinot Noir
Kevin Harvey’s 2019 Horseshoe Vineyard pinot is another great wine in the making. The wine is deep, pure and youthful on the nose, wafting from the glass in a refined blend of red and black cherries, a touch of pomegranate, sweet stem tones, raw cocoa, a complex base of dark soil tones, gamebird, gentle notes of cedar and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is pure, full- bodied, sappy at the core and light on its feet, with impressive transparency and grip, ripe, fine- grained tannins and a long, tangy and nascently complex finish. All this stellar bottle of pinot noir needs is some time alone in the cellar to blossom fully. Great juice! 2032-2070+. 95.

2019 Rhys Horseshoe Vineyard Ungrafted Vines Pinot Noir
It is fascinating to taste the Horseshoe “Ungrafted Vines” bottling alongside of the Hillside cuvée from this vineyard, as the ungrafted version is a touch lighter in color (though still a lovely, dark ruby). The bouquet is deep, complex and seems more expressive out of the blocks than the Hillside, offering up a complex blend of black cherries, pomegranate, woodsmoke, raw cocoa, a beautiful base of soil tones, fresh thyme, sweet stem tones and a lovely dollop of cedar. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and very transparent in personality, with a sappy core of black fruit, excellent focus and grip, plenty of youthful stem tones on the backend, fine- grained tannins and a long, nascently complex and beautifully balanced finish. This is a wine that trades even more profoundly on its underlying soil signature than the Horseshoe Hillside, and though it is not quite as deep at the core, it seems likely to be every bit its equal when the two are ready to drink, despite this wine being a touch less intense in personality. Great juice. 2032- 2075. 95+.

2019 Rhys Horseshoe Hillside Pinot Noir
Rhys Vineyard’s 2019 Hillside bottling of pinot noir from the Horseshoe Vineyard is outstanding. The bouquet delivers a very promising aromatic constellation of sweet dark berries, black cherries, incipient notes of cola, a great base of soil, campfire, a bit of dark chocolate, gamebird, gentle notes from the whole clusters and a very stylish foundation of new oak. On the palate the wine is full, nascently complex and rock solid at the core, with stunning soil signature, ripe, buried tannins, superb focus and grip and a very long, poised and energetic finish. This is still a young wine, but it has backend lift that augurs extremely well for its future beauty and will be worth every minute of waiting for it to blossom in the cellar. 2034-2075. 96.

2018 Rhys Horseshoe Vineyard Syrah
The 2018 Syrah from the Horseshoe Vineyard is another absolutely stellar bottle in the making from Rhys Vineyards. The wine tips the scales at an even thirteen percent alcohol and delivers a beautifully precise and complex nose of black raspberries, blackberries, pepper, black olive, smoked meats, stony soil tones, black tea, just a whisper of new oak and a topnote of bonfire. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused and peppery, with an excellent core of fruit, superb mineral drive and grip, ripe, firm and well-integrated tannins and a long, youthful and chewy finish. This is a long distance runner that will not be happy to be disturbed from its hibernation in the cellar for at least the next dozen years or so, but it is going to be a great bottle when it is ready to drink. 2033-2065+. 94.