2024 Barda Pinot Noir

Tasting notes:

This is always a benchmark for elegant, cool-climate Pinot Noir, and 2024 release is no exception. It is incredibly pure and focused on the nose, leaping from the glass with vibrant, lifted aromas of wild strawberry, fresh cranberry, and tart raspberry, underscored by delicate hints of dried rose petal and sandalwood. On the palate, it is beautifully vivid and lively. The fruit is crunchy and bright, balanced by a fine thread of minerality and a seamless, silky texture. It avoids the jammy pitfalls of warmer New World climates, carrying its 12% ABV with effortless, feather-light grace. It finishes fresh, mouth-watering, and intensely elegant.

Producer description:

Piero Incisa della Rocchetta is the grandson of the founder of Tenuta San Guido, the producer of Sassicaia, and Chacra is his personal project in northern Patagonia. The estate is in the Rio Negro valley about half way between the Atlantic and the Andes, and consists of alluvial beds left by the ancient glacier and by the river. There is quite a history for Pinot Noir in this region, and in 1964 there were still about 2400 hectares of planted vineyard, but then there was a sharp drop-off and by 1990 only 232 hectares remained. In 2003 Piero Incisa purchased the first of the Chacra vineyards, an abandoned plot planted in 1932, having tasted a Pinot from the area in New York and realising that the area had potential. Since then there has been something of a resurgence in enthusiasm for Pinot, and by 2009 the total Pinot Noir in the Rio Negro was back up to 1681 hectares.