Wine Notes;
Our goal each year is to capture the vibrancy, energy and rare, chiseled red fruit quality that this site is capable of producing. We pick the Bodega Headlands Vineyard in multiple passes at the early edge of ripeness to produce a firmly structured wine that is distinguished by its complexity and intensity rather than any dimension of weight.
We preserve as many intact whole berries as possible throughout the fermentation process by using the bare minimum number of gentle punch downs. The temperature of the cap and of the fermenting juice is kept lower than our other bottlings in order to capture the high-toned, lifted aromatics and saline essence this site expresses. This gives the Bodega Headlands pinot noir the vivid aromatics we desire, along with a measure of elegance and grace.
96 Pts. Wine Advocate
The 2020 Pinot Noir Bodega Headlands Cuvée Elizabeth is spicy and expressive, with singular aromas of cranberry sauce, rhubarb, fennel, saline, tea leaves and amaro-like undertones. The light-bodied palate offers an excellent balance of fragrant, concentrated fruit, mouthwatering acidity and pleasurably chalky tannins, and it finishes with a flourish of spicy accents. Although it has what it needs for cellaring, I would be inclined to drink it on the younger side because of the challenges of the vintage. Why wait?
In 2020, Occidental bottled all five of their single-vineyard wines. In this marginal climate, harvest is significantly earlier than in warmer areas of Sonoma County. “Our first day of harvest was scheduled for the first day of the fires on August 18,” proprietor Steve Kistler remembered. “The summer was so warm and dry anyway, and the berries so small, we were already getting ready to pick. Our yields are under two tons per acre, and we pick so much earlier than most. For the next couple of weeks, we picked everything from both our properties. Everyone was at the mercy of the wind patterns, whether or not the smoke stagnated, how high the smoke was, etc. And if the fruit wasn’t ripe enough or if you had to wait to pick, it wouldn’t have worked. Our saving grace was that we had reached the edge of ripeness, and the wind patterns were in our favor. We didn’t change a single thing in the winery—it was either going to work or not. They were going to be Occidental wines or nothing at all.”
94 Pts. Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Pinot Noir Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvee Elizabeth pours a youthful ripe ruby hue and has very attractive floral aromas of wild raspberry, incense, wildflowers, and wet stone. Medium-bodied, with great balance of ripeness and purity, it offers cherry liqueur, violets, fine tannins, and a soft mineral texture and has seamless freshness of acidity without any harsh edges. Drink 2023-2033.
The family estate of Steve Kistler in the Bodega Headlands, Occidental is exclusively devoted to producing coastally influenced Pinot Noir. Kistler was initially drawn to the area after tasting a bottling of Summa Vineyard that expressed a vivid and more cool climate style. Though Occidental was officially founded in 2011, Steve has been planting vineyards and purchasing property in the area since the 1990s and has retained his original cellar team for the past 30 years. His daughter Catherine Kistler has been the assistant winemaker since 2017, and they are members of the West Sonoma Coast Vintners Association. Looking toward the estate's future, they have acquired a new ranchland property two and a half miles from the coast and will begin planting Pinot Noir vines on Goldridge soils next year at this even cooler temperature site. The following wines were tasted at the winery in May. For each of the single-vineyard sites, they hold the wines back an additional year, so this tasting focused on the 2020 vintage (with the exception of the 2021 Pinot Noir Freestone-Occidental).
