Aromatically explosive on the first pour, the 2021 Pinot Noir Alpine Vineyard opens with aromas of green pepper, watercress, dried leather and petrichor. The palate springs into action with a weightless, floating and enveloping texture. Bolstered tannins and firm acidity coat the palate, producing a cascading, assertive, spherical finish. Along with the horseshoe bottling, this is a benchmark for not only Rhys but for California as a whole. As always, this requires cellaring to get past its outer walls, but patience should provide immense pleasure and complexity. (ML)

The 2021 Alpine Vineyard cuvée of pinot noir from Rhys Vineyards is an outstanding young wine. This is one of the lower octane pinots in the 2021 roster this year, coming in at 13.4 percent. The wine offers up a beautifully refined, signature black fruity bouquet of dark berries, black plums, coffee bean, incipient notes of cola, dark minerality, a touch of brown spices, woodsmoke and cedar. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and beautifully complex already, with a sappy core of black fruit, great mineral undertow and grip, suave, buried tannins and a long, energetic and precise finish of impeccable balance and inherent elegance.