2016 Mail Road Wines Pinot Noir Mt. Carmel
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Another gem, the 2016 Pinot Noir Mt Carmel Vineyard offers a killer bouquet of cassis, black cherries, scorched earth, underbrush, and graphite. It's deep, medium to full-bodied, beautifully pure, and straight up seamless on the palate, with ultra-fine tannins that emerge on the finish. It's a rockstar bottle of Pinot Noir and up with the finest in this report.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
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Mail Road's 2016 Pinot Noir Mt. Carmel Vineyard is a vivid, stunningly beautiful wine endowed with real class and personality. A wine of translucent energy and drive, the 2016 is utterly compelling from the moment it is first poured. The red and purplish berry fruit is nicely delineated, but the wine still needs time to develop the full breadth of its aromatics. In a word: Wow!
The 2016 Pinot Noir Mt Carmel Vineyard is superb, soaring from the glass with a bouquet of wild berry fruit, rich soil, subtle potpourri and peony that reminded me of a young Gevrey-Chambertin from Denis Bachelet. On the palate, the wine is supple, medium-bodied and fine-grained, with a crunchy core of concentrated fruit, racy acids and a long, intense finish. From high-density plantings and fermented with a pinch of whole clusters, this was matured in once- and twice-used barrels.
Fresh purple berry character, lavender, mint and white flowers give the 2016 Pinot Noir Mt. Carmel Vineyard its super-perfumed, sublime personality. A wine of breathtaking purity and beauty, it is nearly impossible to resist, even today.