Occidental By Steve Kistler - Pinot Noir Bodega Ridge 2021 (750ml)
Price: $135.00
| Producer | Occidental By Steve Kistler |
| Country | USA |
| Region | California |
| Subregion | Sonoma Coast |
| Varietal | Pinot Noir |
| Vintage | 2021 |
| Sku | 7990 |
| Size | 750ml |
Jeb Dunnuck: 98 Points
A ripe ruby red color, the 2021 Pinot Noir Bodega Ridge Vineyard comes from a parcel that sits atop the property’s highest ridge, overlooking the Running Fence Vineyard and the winery. The wine is electric with bright red cherries, blood orange peel, spices, cranberries, and bright spice. Medium-bodied, with compact intensity and ripe, chiseled tannins juxtaposed with citrus-noted lift, it’s chiseled and long, with great definition. It offers a great, persistent mineral texture and refinement. Drink 2026-2046.
The estate of Steve Kistler and his family in the Bodega Headlands, Occidental is exclusively devoted to producing coastally influenced Pinot Noir, and they are members of the West Sonoma Coast Vintners Association. Kistler was initially drawn to the area after tasting a bottling of Summa Vineyard that expressed a vivid and more cool climate style. Although Occidental was officially founded in 2011, Steve has been planting vineyards and purchasing property in the area since the 1990s and has retained his original cellar team for the past 30 years. His daughter, Catherine Kistler, has been the assistant winemaker since 2017. Each of the wines tasted for this report are their vineyard-designated selections, which are held back an initial year prior to release. I was highly anticipating this tasting, as the quality of the 2021 Freestone-Occidental tasted last year far exceeded my expectations, and this year’s visit did not disappoint. I would be thrilled to have any of these wines in my cellar.
Vinous: 98+ Points
The 2021 Pinot Noir Bodega Ridge Vineyard is a wine of pure and total sensuality. Dark red/purplish fruit orange peel cinnamon new leather cedar and sweet pipe tobacco give the 2021 striking aromatic presence to play off its mid-weight personality. The 2021 Bodega Ridge is all class but it is the most reticent of the wines today. It manages to bring together all the elements that define these wines namely serious fruit concentration backed by vertical explosive structure. - By Antonio Galloni on January 2024 I have been looking forward to the Occidental 2021s since I tasted the Freestone-Occidental bottling a few months ago. The 2021s were picked on what Steve and Catherine Kistler call "the early edge of ripeness." Yields were two tons per acre a bit higher than in most recent years. Time on skins was 21-24 days with native ferments and malos. The wines were aged in French oak (25% new) and racked to tank in July 2022 prior to bottling in December 2023. As a reminder there are six Pinots in the range. The Freestone-Occidental is the entry-level Pinot. The Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvée Elizabeth and SWK emerge from Steve Kistler?s home ranch the property that is adjacent to Platt while the Running Fence Vineyard Cuvée Catherine and Bodega Ridge are sourced from newer plantings that surround the winery. The Occidental Station is the only Pinot that is sourced from a vineyard that lies further east and not in the immediate vicinity of the estate. All of the 2021s are gorgeous but also very young. I won't be surprised if some or all of them show even better with time in bottle. That has certainly been my experience in the past.
Wine Advocate: 97+ Points
The 2021 Pinot Noir Bodega Ridge Vineyard is tightly coiled to begin slowly unfurling pure aromas of raspberry and pomegranate shiitake mushrooms iodine pipe tobacco licorice and tremendous floral perfume. The light-bodied palate is more open at this youthful stage bursting with expressive red fruit. It's structurally seamless its powerful velvety tannins balanced by focused acidity that drives the wine forward and it has a very long finish with a kaleidoscopic array of spicy accents. It gained weight and nuance for several days after the bottle was opened and will be long lived in the cellar. Steve Kistler and his daughter Catherine are hard at work developing their new property on the Sonoma Coast located just 10 minutes from their Occidental winery but more heavily impacted by the marginal effects of the Pacific Ocean. Blocks have been plotted out and staked and the first vines will be planted in the spring of 2024. The Kistlers are proponents of massal selection propagating from their own vines rather than using purchased clones. ?You are trying to find the selection that will produce the best wine but in most years you give something up to get there? Steve explains. ?The massal selections are not virus free. But it?s like everything else it?s a matter of degree. It?s not debilitating the vine but it helps keep the vine from overproducing. You get less but better crop.? Catherine proudly notes that her father has been developing vineyards and producing wine on the western Sonoma Coast for over two decades?"about as long as anyone who has farmed serious acreage out here" she says. "I?m 32 now and my dad was 32 when he founded Kistler. Working on this new ranch gives me an appreciation of the risk.? Published: Dec 14 2023
Wine Spectator: 96 Points
This gorgeous wine offers a core of sappy kirsch cherry and mulberry fruit that manages to stay light on its feet even as waves of black tea iris blood orange applewood and incense notes emerge steadily through the mouthwatering finish. Youthfully packed with coiled energy giving the tension this needs for the longer haul. Best from 2025 through 2038. 1050 cases made.
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