School House Pinot Noir Spring Mountain 2018

We love this wine. The producer, the story, the history, the flavors, the age-ability...just everything. If you’ve been paying attention, we like to represent. We’re always on the lookout for older vintages, large formats, anything we can get our wine-besotten mitts on, really (that bottle of 1974 is still one of the greatest bottles of California wine I’ve ever had…at a spry 46 years old, no less!). Our fiercest, most dyed-in-the-wool First Bottlers just can’t get enough. So here we are!

2018 is yet another great vintage for this hillside winery. With ample fruit flavors up front of cherry and raspberry, the wine is already showing well in its infancy. But as the wine opens and deepens in the glass, spice, herb, and earth notes take root, complementing the fruit and intensifying the complexity for the long haul. Iron ore, bay laurel, and Chinese five spice are all there, beckoning for the brilliant future.

If you don’t already know School House, you’ll want to check this out…a true "cult" winery before "cult" was even a THING, like several decades before the “cult” thing. There is a LOT of VERY COOL Napa history here... The brand was re-established in the 50s and is one-of-a-kind, perched up high on Spring Mountain. So many layers to peel back on this producer… glorious factoids, below!

- DRC. Let’s start with the big daddy…The cuttings for the School House vineyard were brought by Inglenook’s founder, the legendary Gustave Niebaum. When they converted the vineyard to cabernet in the 50s, THOSE cuttings went to School House! To this day, it is the only clonal selection there.

- School House was planted in 1953 after current owner John Gantner’s father purchased the property the decade prior for a jaw-dropping $25/acre. The vineyard is dry-farmed and organic. Dry farming pinot on the hillsides of northern Napa just boggles the mind. Yields are beyond miniscule as a result, but they keep at it.

- Incredibly hard to find; retailers get a few bottles here and there but most of it goes to restaurants and savvy collectors. Only 320 cases total pinot made in 2018!

- For decades the minuscule production has been made at Pride Mountain Vineyards.

- The price. We continue to be shocked to ever GET any, much less at a price like this.

- Great notes on past vintages on CellarTracker and the like. Worth noting the fantastic aging potential, too -- many of the 70s wines are still rocking.

- More info on the history HERE.

Grab a handful, drink a couple and hide the rest. I’ll keep my forwarding address updated, so that 30 years from now, when I am long since retired and reading a book by a fire somewhere, you can send me a note and talk about how stellar this wine still is!

PAIRING IDEAS: With Labor Day coming up, my thoughts are already drifting to a weekend of BBQing...this Carolina-style pork shoulder is definitely in the queue and perfect for this pinot.

MUSIC SUGGESTIONS: It seems every time we get this we feel like celebrating… hop in to the Way, Way Back Machine with Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling”!