Luli is the result of a decade of friendship and hard work in the wine business. Sara Floyd, Master Sommelier, and the Pisoni Family, known for their meticulous vineyard and winery practices, have teamed up to produce a wine that represents their combined experience and expertise.
To make the Luli wines, Floyd and the Pisoni Family purchase grapes from multiple vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands, a California coastal region excellent for growing cool-climate grapes.
The Vintage:
2012 was a very exciting vintage. The entire year winemakers were anxious to begin harvest because the weather conditions leading up to it were ideal. The beginning of the year was quite dry in the Santa Lucia Highlands. This stresses the vines, and produces fruit of intense flavor. The flowering and fruit-set were picturesque and were followed by a mild summer free of heat spikes. This allows for one to achieve the ideal ripeness in a given block. Across the board, the wines produced are very remarkable and age-worthy.
The Vineyard:
The 2012 Luli was sourced entirely from various sustainably farmed vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands. The vines are well-trained, carry low yields and are planted to a variety of different clones. Soils are well-drained and primarily granite in composition. These factors, combined with the fog and cool winds of the Santa Lucia Highlands provide wonderful growing conditions for Pinot Noir.
The Winemaking:
The Luli Pinot Noir was made with classic winemaking techniques:
Hand-sorting of the fruit, native yeasts for fermentation and production in small lots. The wine was aged in ‘neutral’ French oak barrels and was not fined or filtered. The resulting balanced wine is a tribute to the region’s success with Pinot Noir.
Tasting Notes:
The 2012 Luli Pinot Noir is a beautiful wine: both powerful and elegant.
The aromatics are bright and vibrant with notes of wild strawberry, boysenberry, rose petal and earl grey tea. The palate is broad and full, with firm tannins giving structure and length with lasting flavors of bing cherries and baking spices.
