Kistler Silver Belt Cuvee Natalie Pinot Noir 2011 carries the estate's most delicate single-vineyard Pinot Noir, and the Silver Belt block delivers it with red wild berry and floral notes and a rose-petal texture. It is a wine to open at the start of an evening rather than at the end of one.
About This Wine
The 2011 Cuvee Natalie came from Silver Belt, whose older iron-oxide driven soils mixed with gravel the estate calls an exceptional medium for Pinot Noir. The fruit is a mix of Calera and Swan clones, and the wine is fermented with native yeasts in open-top fermenters at cool temperatures, the free run juice barrelled in French oak for 14 to 18 months, and bottled unfiltered and unfined. The estate's tasting description of the block holds good for this vintage: consistently elegant, perfectly weighted, floral and perfumed.
Tasting Profile
- Nose: Rose petal and violet with red cherry and a fine, stony note.
- Palate: Light and precise, red fruit with silken tannin and fresh acidity.
- Finish: Long, floral and lifted, with perfume at the close.
Serving & Food
Serve at 15°C in a slim glass and open it a little ahead of the food. Grilled chicken with tarragon or a simple risotto both sit well with the delicacy.
How to Enjoy
For a drinker who likes a Pinot with lift rather than weight, and for the first glass of a dinner where the food is gentle.
Product Details
Producer: Kistler Vineyards
Vintage: 2011
Region: Sonoma County, California
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Volume: 750mL
About the Winery
Kistler farms seventeen vineyards across five appellations and works with a circle of growers as planting partners rather than buying finished fruit. The estate selects the soils it wants, propagates its own heritage selections and plants them on the growers' land with the long term in view, and some of those partnerships go back more than thirty years.