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Will Kelly, Wine Advocate Interim End of May 2018

There are two important pieces of news from Rhys Vineyards. The first is that Kevin Harvey’s new venture with Italian grape varieties, Aeris, is about to debut, and readers are directed to my notes under that name for more information. The second is that beginning with the 2016 vintage, appellation wines will no longer be produced under the Rhys Vineyards label, which henceforth will be reserved for vineyard-designate wines. Instead, Harvey’s Alesia label, formerly used for wines from purchased fruit, is being re-introduced as a home for appellation wines—even though these wines will now be produced entirely from estate-grown fruit. At the risk of creating confusion, the Alesia wines are reviewed here under Rhys Vineyards; they will still, of course, be offered for sale via the Rhys Vineyards mailing list.

Beyond these two innovations, the story of incremental progress every year (with which followers of the Rhys wines will by now be familiar) remains the same. High-density estate vineyards and meticulous farming are the rule. Pinot Noir sees classical vinification in one-ton tanks (frequently incorporating significant proportions of whole clusters), followed by maturation in François Frères barrels (produced from the winery’s own four-year seasoned oak staves). Chardonnay ferments in barrels and matures on the lees before racking to tank several months before bottling—a regimen that’s common in contemporary Burgundy.

All the Rhys wines start life quite tight-knit and firmly structured, though my sense is that the Pinot Noir vintages from this decade are more structurally refined than those from the last. They do seem to open up and become expressive more rapidly than their qualitative equivalents from the Côte d’Or, but five or six years of cellaring is certainly recommended, even required. Happily, the Rhys website features a regularly updated vintage chart for anyone looking for advice on what is currently showing well. From my own cellar, the 2012 vineyard-designate Pinot Noirs are performing very well. I also encourage readers not to miss the Chardonnays, which are without doubt among the best being produced in North America.

2016 Alesia Chardonnay Anderson Valley

The 2016 Alesia Chardonnay Anderson Valley offers up an inviting bouquet of green orchard fruit, struck match, blanched almonds and subtle nutmeg. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied and succulent, with a more rounded, giving profile than its Santa Cruz Mountains counterpart but displays good cut and vitality, concluding with a youthfully chalky finish. This is the most accessible Chardonnay in the Rhys portfolio, but I’d expect it to drink well for the better part of a decade.90

2016 Alesia Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay

The 2016 Alesia Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains is superb, unfurling in the glass with notes of fresh pear, preserved citrus, lemon oil and a light framing of smoky reduction. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, concentrated and tensile, built around a racy line of acidity and concluding with a saline finish that’s almost searingly stony. This represents a notable change of pace after the more rounded, giving Anderson Valley Alesia bottling and marks this out as one of the keenest values in the Rhys portfolio. Follow it for a decade, perhaps more.92

2016 Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley

The 2016 Alesia Pinot Noir Anderson Valley is unabashedly delicious, bursting with fragrant aromas of dried flowers, raspberries, wild plums and sweet forest floor. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, supple and satiny, with a juicy core of succulent, mouthwatering fruit that’s framed by melting tannins. This bottling is already expressive, and I’d expect it to drink well for a decade, perhaps more. Note that this vintage hails entirely from Kevin Harvey’s Bearwallow Vineyard.91

2015 Rhys Vineyards Pinot Noir Anderson Valley

The 2015 Pinot Noir Anderson Valley is already quite expressive, exhibiting attractively lifted aromas of sweet red berries, blood orange, cocoa nib, subtle spices and rich soil. On the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, supple and expansive, with juicy acids and a juicy core of sapid fruit, framed by rich, fine-grained tannins. While this will certainly reward a few years in the cellar, it won’t be a crime to pull corks today. Note that from 2016 onward, this cuvée will bear the Alesia label.90

2016 Rhys Vineyards Bearwallow Vineyard Chardonnay

The 2016 Chardonnay Bearwallow Vineyard is lovely, exhibiting youthful but expressive notes of apple, white peach and a touch of green herbs, subtly framed by a judicious application of new oak. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied, with bright acids that lend the wine focus and delineation, with good concentration and a chalky, mouthwatering finish. The additional tension and intensity that this possesses over the Alesia Anderson Valley bottling—also derived from Bearwallow Vineyard—reflects how selective, both at the press and in the cellar, the Rhys team is in determining what makes the cut. Follow it for the coming decade or more.94

2016 Rhys Vineyards Horseshoe Vineyard Chardonnay

The 2016 Chardonnay Horseshoe Vineyard offers up aromas of pear, grapefruit pith, iodine and fresh nutmeg. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, layered and powerful, with an elegantly textural attack and wonderful mid-palate amplitude underpinned by tangy acids, concluding with a long and stony finish. The overall impression is beautifully complete. Cellar this compelling Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay for a few years, and then follow it for the better part of a decade.95+

2016 Rhys Vineyards Alpine Vineyards Chardonnay

The 2016 Chardonnay Alpine Vineyard is a stunning young wine that’s one of the best whites Rhys has produced to date. Opening up with vivid aromas of lemon oil, citrus pith, crisp apple and nutmeg, it’s fuller-bodied, glossier and more textural than the Horseshoe bottling, with a broader attack as well. But it’s also intensely saline and mineral, with wonderful concentration and intensity. Several years of patience will be rewarded by greater expressiveness and complexity, and I’d expect it to drink well for the better part of two decades thereafter.96

2016 Rhys Vineyards Bearwallow Vineyard Pinot Noir

The most approachable of Rhys’ vineyard-designate Pinot Noirs, the 2016 Pinot Noir Bearwallow Vineyard offers up expressive aromas of black plums, wild berries, peonies and rich soil. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it’s supple and layered, with a juicy core of crunchy fruit, succulent acids and lovely declination. Already integrated and giving, drink it over the next decade or more.92

2016 Rhys Vineyards Porcupine Hill Pinot Noir

Derived from a section of the vineyard where the vines are planted at such high density that the stakes resembled the quills of a porcupine, the 2016 Pinot Noir Porcupine Hill Bearwallow Vineyard is very attractive, revealing a more brooding and sapid bouquet than the regular Bearwallow bottling. Offering up aromas of plums, wild berries, dark chocolate and incipient coniferous floor, the wine is medium to full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, with more concentration and amplitude than the regular Bearwallow, underpinned by bright acids and concluding with a stony, precise finish.94

2016 Rhys Vineyards Family Farm Vineyard Pinot Noir

Like the Bearwallow bottling, the 2016 Pinot Noir Family Farm Vineyard is quite approachable this year, revealing youthfully reserved but already complex aromas of cherries, sweet soil, raw cocoa, forest floor and subtle peony. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, layered and sappy, with velvety tannins and a juicy, mouthwatering finish. It was vinified with only 15% whole cluster this year.92

2016 Rhys Vineyards Home Vineyard Pinot Noir

The 2016 Pinot Noir Home Vineyard reveals a deep-pitched bouquet of plummy fruit, raw cocoa, potpourri, cinnamon and nutmeg. On the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, tense and chalky, with a fine-grained but tight-knit chassis of tannins and a long, sappy finish. Vinified with 100% whole cluster, this is taut and structural right now, so plan on cellaring it for 5-6 years, perhaps longer, and following it for the subsequent 10-15 years.93+

2016 Rhys Vineyards Skyline Vineyard Pinot Noir

The 2016 Pinot Noir Skyline Vineyard is one of the more exotic wines in the range, bursting with complex aromas of strawberries, plums, potpourri, rich spice and a subtle bass note of grilled meat. On the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, layered and beautifully complete, simultaneously ample and tense, rich but weightless. This Pinot Noir’s silky structure and concentration reflect yields so low that ten vines are typically required to produce one bottle. Four or five years of patience will be required and more will be rewarded.96

2016 Rhys Vineyards Alpine Vineyard Pinot Noir

The 2016 Pinot Noir Alpine Vineyard is aromatically extravagant, even at this early stage, bursting from the glass with notes of cinnamon, orange rind, nutmeg, cherries and raspberries. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, ample and multidimensional, with rich structuring tannins, succulent acids and lovely purity and precision, concluding with a fragrant, transparent finish. The 2016 was vinified with 33% whole cluster and matured in 45% new oak. A few days before my tasting with Brinkman and Harvey, I drank a bottle of the 2012 Alpine Pinot Noir from my own cellar, and the common thread of aromas and textures that connected the older vintage with the younger was striking testimony to the distinctiveness of this terroir.95

2016 Rhys Vineyards Swan Terrace Pinot Noir

The supremely elegant 2016 Pinot Noir Swan Terrace—which was vinified with 100% whole cluster and matured in 20% new oak—was one of the high points of my tasting with winemaker Jeff Brinkman and proprietor Kevin Harvey. Bursting from the glass with an extravagant bouquet of wild plums, chocolate, licorice, rich soil, potpourri and spice, the wine is full-bodied, layered and expansive, with a velvety, even and plush attack, amazing mid-palate depth and dimension, stunning intensity and concentration and a long, perfumed and stony finish. As readers may know, the Swan Terrace is a small, east-facing parcel of Rhys’ Alpine Vineyard where the soils consist of chalky Purisima shale.97

2016 Rhys Vineyards Horseshoe Vineyard Pinot Noir

The 2016 Pinot Noir Horseshoe Vineyard takes some time to unwind in the glass, unfurling to reveal notes of strawberries, red cherries, rich spices, forest floor and subtle grilled meat. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied, taut and youthfully firm, its bright core of concentrated fruit framed by chalky, fine-grained tannins. This is one of the most tightly coiled wines in the range and will require 5 or 6 years of patience. But when it shows all its cards, its precision and energy will be striking.94

2016 Rhys Vineyards Alpine Vineyard Hillside Pinot Noir

Rhys bottles the steepest, stoniest part of their Alpine Vineyard separately in years where the quality merits it and the quantity is sufficient to do so without depriving the regular Alpine bottling of its core, and when they do so, the results are invariably very special indeed. The 2016 Pinot Noir Alpine Hillside Vineyard is stunning, unfurling in the glass with a youthfully reticent but very deep bouquet of cherries, peonies and subtle forest floor. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, tight-knit and concentrated, with immense depth and dimensions and structured around tangy acids and an ample—even rich—chassis of tannin. The finish is long and penetrating. This is going to demand time in the cellar—5 to 6 years at the minimum—and I wouldn’t start pulling corks until it reaches its 10th birthday. The 2016 was vinified with 50% whole cluster and matured in 45% new oak.97+

2016 Rhys Vineyards Horseshoe Vineyard Hillside Pinot Noir

The 2016 Pinot Noir Horseshoe Hillside Vineyard is also exceptional, and if anything, even more youthfully coiled and reserved than the Alpine Hillside bottling, wafting from the glass with complex aromas of peony, raw cocoa, sweet wild berries and grilled meat, complemented by ineffably savory, umami-like bass notes. When I speculated that it was showing some very subtle reduction, Harvey and Brinkman suggested—persuasively—those savory qualities simply represented an amplification of the aromatic signatures found in the regular Horseshoe bottling. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with incredible concentration and purity, concluding with a focused and stony finish. Again, 5 or 6 years of cellaring will be required here, and a decade will be recommended.97

2016 Rhys Vineyards Horseshoe Vineyard Syrah

The 2016 Syrah Horseshoe Vineyard exhibits aromas of crunchy wild berries, juniper, cracked black pepper, rich soil and subtle smoke. On the palate, it’s medium to full-bodied, firm and chewy, with super depth and concentration, a multidimensional core and a long, taut finish. Harvested in mid-October, this is going to demand plenty of patience, but it’s full of promise.93+