Tasted alongside the youthful 2011, Bethel Heights' 2002 Pinot Noir Casteel Reserve - which came from the estate's Flat Block, its Wadenswil vines, and Seven Springs - originated in a relatively warm vintage as well as, in Ben Casteel's words,"-the dogmatic -24 brix means quality- days when it came to picking. But for whatever reason - it could be cool nights - the -02s kept pretty nice, vibrant acidity for being what I would call above average ripeness." The dark berries here are at once cooked and tart-edged, infused with berry seed, buckwheat and deeply-toasted grain for a pronounced piquancy. Peat- and Latakia tobacco-like smokiness adds to the metaphorically sinister, almost ominously brooding character of this truly noir Pinot; still firm tannins and the wine-s other bitter elements being in part assuaged by the persistence of primary berry juiciness and the salivation engendered by salinity. (There is no heat from 14.1% alcohol.) I tend to think that this fascinating wine will be best enjoyed over the next couple of years.
"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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