Brewer-Clifton style

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
High praise is often offered up for Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Numerous quoted commentaries by Eric Asimov etal are very favorable.

Having never tasted anyk Brewer-Clifton wines (that I can recall), this high praise seems surprising given the high alcohol (14 - 16%) content.

. . . . Pete
 
Keith, considering the different concepts, especially with respect to ripeness and alcohol percentage, that comparison is hard to imagine (albeit from a distance in my case).

. . . . Pete
 
Like Keith, I once bought Brewer-Clifton, then tasted the errors of my ways. I even visited their facility. My sense is they were pretty hands-off on winemaking and the wines are red, even pale red, Mark (which I always attributed to lots of stem inclusion). The problem was the alcohol levels. I've heard smart, knowledgeable folks say that it's hard to get Pinot Noir physiologically ripe in the Santa Rita Hills at more modest sugar levels. That valley runs west to east, an anomaly on the Central Coast, and as a result is quite windy. I've been told that wind can delay ripening, even while sugars accumulate. If that's true as a matter of plant physiology, then I think it's a major reason the Brewer-Clifton wines, and others from the same terroir, fail for Disorderly palates.
 
But Joe Davis manages to handle the terroir there just fine. In Brewer-Clifton's case, I think the issue is that they pursue extra long hang time not for purposes of grape ripeness but for purposes of lignified stems. Other producers that ferment whole clusters are willing to throw bright green stems into the vat. At least that was my understanding of their practices from way back.
 
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