The pinnacle of our Pinot Noir portfolio, this regal and elegant wine combines grapes from a who’s who of renowned vineyards. The result is a profoundly complex and layered wine with a rich entry, lovely weight and alluring aromas reminiscent of freshly baked mixed-berry pie.
The grapes from each vineyard were hand-harvested and gently destemmed into small one-ton fermenters to preserve the style of each vineyard and clone separately. A three-day cold soak at 35º F with daily pump-overs to extract tannin and color pigment from the skins and to allow nutrients and uniformity to the juice. We then initiate fermentation with the inoculation of yeast and a slow increase of temperature. Fermentation and time on the skins tend to be about 3 weeks in total. The wines were then put straight into French oak barrels as free run, with the press fraction kept separate. After 10 months of aging, in 29% new and 33% one-year-old oak, we blended the 24 barrels of The Loch into tank to create the blend and allow the different wines to meld together. It was then aged an additional 6 months in barrel until The Loch was deemed aged to perfection and was bottled on March 1, 2024.
The 2022 vintage was impacted by a third consecutive year of drought that resulted in a reduction in yields from 10-30%. The growing season was temperate, which in grape growing means we were on track, or ahead of normal growth. Then we saw some heat spikes that prompted our first picks. The grapes for each vineyard contributing to The Loch (River Road Ranch, Calesa, Huichica, Thale’s, Dutton’s Manzana, Nightwing, Olivet Lane, Klopp Ranch, and Gap’s Crown) were individually harvested by hand between August 25 and September 13, 2022.
Combining decades of winemaking mastery, with our long history on the Sonoma Coast, The Loch is our consummate Pinot Noir blend, artfully crafted from our best blocks and barrels of wine. “Our goal is simple, but not easy,” says Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen. “We search our cellar for our most beautiful wines of the vintage—stirring wines that sing on the palate. Then we begin blending.” Like a secret code unlocked by our winemakers, The Loch embodies everything that we know about making great Pinot Noir. We named our pinnacle Pinot Noir and Chardonnay blends The Loch and The Key, both as a nod to our founder Steve MacRostie’s Scottish heritage and to his early experiences as a U.S. Army cryptographer in Europe.
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