Sandhi Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir 2021

Sandhi is a small production California winery focusing on select vineyards from the Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County. Founded in 2010 by Rajat Parr, the wine director for Michael Mina Restaurants, along with winemaker, Sashi Moorman, Sandhi represents a union essential to the production of wine: the collaboration between man, earth and vine. All three elements are necessary to make great wine, and the winegrower must make this collaboration rich and nourishing for all involved. An understanding of these joint efforts informs Sandhi’s exploration of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines throughout the Santa Barbara County terroir.

The individual vineyards from which these grapes originate–some legendary, some new–have been exhaustively vetted for character, personality and balance. Employing the wisdom and talents of people who know the vineyards, Sandhi is dedicated to making wines of finesse, minerality, acidity, structure and balance. Wine achieves power and beauty through the seamless integration of these qualities and this is the inspiration for Sandhi. They do not craft wines with extreme ripeness, alcohol, oak, and other discordant exaggerations, since those types of wines cannot truly express a specific vineyard's terroir.

Only 1,677 cases produced, sourced from 94% Domaine de la Côte estate vineyards, and the remaining 6% from La Rinconada Vineyard (Sta. Rita Hills AVA) using organic fruit and indigenous yeast fermentation in open-top concrete vats then aged 6 months in neutral barrel.

Antonio Galloni of Vinous says, "Just bottled, the 2021 Pinot Noir (Sta. Rita Hills) shows all the energy and nuance the vintage has to offer. Crushed red berry fruit, rose petal, chalk, mint and white pepper abound. This is tremendous appellation-level Pinot and a huge overachiever that could very well turn out to be even better than this note suggests. This tasting at Sandhi was one of the highlights of my trip to Santa Barbara."