Margins Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir 2019 (750 ml)

An extremely light Pinot, with tart crunchy fruit and a gravelly mineral backbone, and delicious, refreshing acidity. 

Vinification:

100% destemmed. Fermented on skins for one week. Aged in neutral oak for 16.5 months. Native​ ​fermentation, no fining, no filtration, no other modifications or additions except 20 ppm of sulfur​ ​dioxide the week before bottling.

Bio:

Ever on the quest for something ‘marginal,’ I was striving to make a very light bodied Pinot like I did in 2018. That did not happen. Every year in the vineyard is different, and part of what makes low-intervention wine special is that we strive to highlight and embrace the inconsistencies from year to year instead of trying to homogenize everything. This Pinot is brambley and has some ​nice reduction on the nose (think evergreen tree, not hydrogen sulfide at all). It tastes like partial whole cluster, but those of you who have been drinking Margins for a while know that I destem all of the reds. While I typically attempt to make wines that are straightforward and easy to enjoy, there is a level of elegant inaccessibility to this wine that was unexpected but welcomed. Give it a good ol’ decant and enjoy.

Margins produces low-intervention wines using grapes from underrepresented regions, vineyards, and varietals. We are part of the growing movement in California to make wines from vineyards farmed organically or in organic conversion using minimal additives during the winemaking process, thereby showcasing the vineyards the grapes came from.

Much like people living on the 'margins of society,' vineyards can be outcasts too. Most consumers of wine are only familiar with a handful of grape growing regions and types of wine. Margins draws attention to vineyards and varietals throughout northern and central California that find themselves on the margins without the recognition they deserve.

Part of the Margins mission over the last five years has been to work with small growers to transition their vineyards from conventional to organic farming by providing guidance as well as assurance that the grapes will have a home. We believe that if we worked solely with organic vineyards, we would not be using our role in the industry to its full potential to enact agricultural change. As of vintage 2021, all the vineyards Margins works with are farmed organically.

Margins is a winemaking endeavor of Megan Bell, a winemaker living and working in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Prior to settling on the central coast of California, Megan received her BS in Viticulture and Enology from UC Davis in 2012 and apprenticed in wineries and vineyards in Napa, the Livermore Valley, the Willamette Valley, Central Otago (NZ), and the Loire Valley (France). 

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