Whitcraft’s Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir is sourced from four elite sustainable and/or organically farmed vineyards: Pence, Sanford & Benedict, La Rinconada, and Shokrian. Drake’s hand-harvested grapes saw a whole-cluster fermentation on ambient yeasts, and a few manual punch-downs were carried out along the way. The free-run juice was transferred into neutral oak barrels, where it aged for 11 months without any racking. It was bottled via gravity—there are no pumps to be found here—and without fining or filtering in order to preserve every ounce of purity and delicate aroma.

Although you should first taste the wine right out of the bottle, I always recommend decanting Whitcraft’s younger wines and allowing them to soak up oxygen, at least 30 minutes, before pouring into Burgundy stems. Few producers pull off 100% whole-cluster Pinot Noir so well—DRC and Dujac do it flawlessly in Burgundy, but only the elite can afford those prices. Whitcraft is an extraordinarily affordable alternative. One could make a strong case that this “SBC” is the most savory of the bunch but there’s no lack of fruit, either. This explodes with plump cherry and strawberry, followed by a sizzling core of stone and damp wild herbs. 110 cases were produced.