From a vineyard just below their original estate, one that Casteels claim normally gives their most forward red, the Bethel Heights 2011 Pinot Noir Justice Vineyard is ultra-pungently-scented with horseradish, fresh ginger, and Szechuan pepper that inflect cassis and cranberry, the corresponding palate impression being almost lip-puckering in its tartness and pungency. A catch of wood tannin in the finish takes the wine's sense stimulation in a faintly rustic direction. But that awkwardness might well rectify itself by the time this wine has been released. Certainly this wine gets high marks for sheer audacity! And I-m inclined to anticipate it being worth following through at least 2018, -though I'd want to revisit it next year to reassess.
"They weren't that different, at least in terms of the season" maintained Mimi Casteel and cousin Ben Casteel in amusing tandem when I asked them to differentiate 2011 and 2010, "just the latest harvest on record, and then the next latest on record! And we haven't felt that there is a qualitative difference either. But we were picking in the 12th-13th of October range, with 2010 (whereas) we didn't start picking until the 25th in 2011 and didn't finish until the 11th of November. Our goal was to get 12% natural alcohol and enough extract that the more tannic parts of our vineyard weren-t going to be just tannic." And many Pinots in this 2011 collection got into bottle at or little over 12%, with distinctively delightful results. The fruit was all destemmed and the extractive regimen lightened. After not getting the results they had hoped for in those few 2010 lots to which tartaric acid had been added (out of concern that the wines would fall flat after such high malic converted to lactic), the Casteels performed no acidulation in equally high-malic 2011. "The changing of our barrel regime to lighter toasting, but more turn-over (hence also newness) and different tonneliers has been gradual, but is something we've really worked on" explains Ben Casteel. "When Mimi and I took over in 2005 we didn't want to change anything dramatically because you have an established track record" to consider. A new property, Ingram Lane, has recently been planted to enhance the future volume here, which is still suffering a bit from the loss of Seven Springs after that venerable neighboring site became part of Evening Land. (For more about Bethel Heights consult my Issue 202 introduction.)
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