Wine Of The Week: Joseph Jewell Elk Prairie Pinot Noir 2021
A California Pinot Noir that’s vibrant and elegant, with fresh raspberry and ripe plum flavors that flirt with notes of redwood and rich earth.
Adrian Manspeaker doesn’t want to work on those pretty manicured green vineyards that line the rolling hills of your favorite wine region. Instead, he prefers to toil high up in the hills of Humboldt County, California, where ascending to his highest vineyards takes more than an hour, or over in the far reaches of coastal Sonoma County, where fog covers the vineyards in the morning and redwood trees dot the vineyards. “You’re really in the middle of nowhere,” says Manspeaker.
It’s also a great place for Pinot Noir, with the fog helping retain acidity and long, warm summers bringing the grapes to perfect ripeness. “We have very few bad vintages,” says Manspeaker. Joseph Jewell’s Elk Prairie Pinot Noir shows this off in spades. It’s vibrant and elegant, with fresh raspberry and ripe plum flavors that flirt with notes of redwood and rich earth, and a lush mid palate rolling into a velvety finish.
But because Joseph Jewell’s vineyards don’t have a Napa or Sonoma ZIP code, the wines tend to offer a lot of bang for your buck (this one is $75) and offer unique advantages over it’s neighboring regions. Manspeaker notes, “I think Humboldt has this edge tannin that is built to age.”
Kate Dingwall is a WSET-trained sommelier and spirits writer. Her work has appeared in Wine Enthusiast, Eater, Forbes.com, and Food & Wine, and she pours wine at one of Canada’s top restaurants.
