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The McDougall Ranch 2006 Pinot Noir headed the list of 108 wines in Wine & Spirits Year's Best Pinot:

...the pinot lives just above the fog, where it grew in 2006 to optimal maturity - vibrant in both color and flavor, dark and savory, with a lift in the end. The flavor is somewhere between cherry and pomegranate; the tannins taste salty, with mouthwatering life. Catch a bottle now with plank-roasted salmon, or five years from now with roast quail." 95 Points

Open Your Wallet for Pinot Pleasure

Recently, the Prince of Pinot offered this advice: Confiscate your wife’s Nordstrom credit card and subscription to Vogue magazine, cancel your kid’s cell phone account, discontinue any superfluous insurance premiums, start riding your bike to work, anything to save some money for the following Pinot Noirs.

2006 Cargasacchi-Jalami Vineyard Potbelly Block
This is a young wine and the nose is quite subdued with subtle notes of red cherry, grass and sanded wood. The lovely red Pinot fruits are accented with herbal and woodsy flavors. Light in body and offering some finesse and lively acidity, this is a good food wine whose flavors trump the aromas at this stage.

2006 McDougall Ranch Sonoma Coast
7-acre vineyard at 1,300 feet four miles from Pacific Ocean. Rich cherry aromas with a little plum, rhubarb and sawdust. Darker stone fruits are featured with a charming earth and herbal note on the finish. Plenty of dirt here. The texture is plush with gossamer tannins. Alcohol is well-integrated. A clean, lingering finish draws you to another sip.

2006 Weir Vineyard Yorkville Highlands
Weir Vineyard is 15 acres which includes rare DRC and Rochioli selections. Very enviable aromas of mineral-inflected black cherry fruit, strawberry and cookie dough. Highly likeable raspberry and strawberry fruit flavors with a glamorous fruity aftertaste accentuated with spice and a little white pepper. The fruity finish sneaks up and expands in the mouth over a minute - very sexy. The demure presentation of fruit is very attractive. I like this wine a lot and it is admirable for its perfect balance and purity. The best from this appellation I have ever sampled. Hock your kids for this one.

2006 Fog-Eater Anderson Valley
Made from two Anderson Valley vineyards heavily influenced by coastal fog. This wine has the most flamboyant aromatics of the lineup with spiced cherries, watermelon, fresh sawn oak and a little barnyard.
Plenty of lovable Pinot fruits, fine-grained tannins which could use some time to shed, and velvety texture.
Doesn’t have the twinkle that the Weir has, but perfectly fine in its own right.

Sweet currants, cherries, and a bit of sassafras and spice comprise the medium ruby-colored 2005 Pinot Noir Weir Vineyard (89 poins) from the Yorkville Highlands (a site made famous by the well-known winery Williams-Selyem in the Russian River). The wine is medium to full-bodied, tightly knit, but beautifully pure and nicely concentrated. It still needs another year or so to be fully expressive, but this is a well-made Pinot Noir.
The 2005 Pinot Noir Fog-Eater (90 points) exhibits a slightly deeper ruby color and a beautiful nose of blueberry, raspberry, and cherry that soars from the glass. Elegant, fresh, and vibrant, with the fruit clearly running the show here, this wine can be drunk now or cellared for 3-4 years.

First Team Pinot Noir All-Americans
2005 Drew Fog-Eater Anderson Valley

Drew 2005 Fog-Eater Pinot Noir
95 Points Editors Choice
"Really just about the perfect Anderson Valley Pinot in terms of the beautifully crisp acidity, and the way the wine blasts pure flavors of red cherries, cassis and raspberries across the palate. With 30% new French oak, this opulence is made more exotic with notes of caramel, butterscotch, vanilla and toast. Combines all this massive power with elegant finesse in a effortless way."

Steve Pitcher reviewed the "best presented" Pinot Noirs at the 10th annual Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival in Philo.

93 Drew, 2005 Fog Eater Pinot Noir
Anderson Valley
From one of the chilliest microclimates in Anderson Valley's Deep End, this exciting Pinot offers enticing aromas of red cherry, strawberry and raspberry that are pure and focused. Silky smooth and luscious with medium tannins, the wine's complex flavors revolve around spicy red fruit, blackberry and a hint of cedar that linger long in the close.

James Laube, in Wine Spectator Online tasted some of our recently-released Pinot Noir wines:

Pinot Noir Yorkville Highlands Weir Vineyard 2005 (92 points)
Medium ruby in color but intense and complex, with lively, focused black cherry, wild berry and raspberry fruit that dances on the palate. Just the right mix of acidity and tannins. Drink now through 2011. 198 cases made. —J.L.

Pinot Noir Anderson Valley Fog-Eater 2005 (90 points)
Ultraripe, with earthy, spicy wild berry, candied cherry and raspberry fruit that's high-toned, clean and focused, ending with a spicy, fruity aftertaste. Drink now through 2010. 225 cases made. —J.L.

Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast McDougall Vineyard 2005 (90 points)
Very ripe, with high-toned cherry, wild berry and raspberry fruit that's plush and spicy, with a touch of cedar and mineral on the finish, but it remains elegant. Drink now through 2010. 75 cases made. —J.L.

Robert Parker, Jr reviewed six Drew Syrah's in Issue 166 of the Wine Advocate:

"A family-owned winery that previously specialized in single vineyard cuvées from Santa Barbara, Drew has moved its entire operation to California's North Coast, but I believe that they intend to keep their association with some of the South's top-notch vineyards.
These six Syrahs all performed well.

My favorite of the group is the exquisite 2004 Syrah Larner Vineyard (94 points) (an east-facing slope at the south end of the Ballard Canyon in the Santa Ynez Valley). It boasts extraordinary notes of acacia flowers, blueberry and blackberry liqueur, terrific fruit on the attack, dense full-bodied, concentrated flavors, moderately high tannins,
and a wonderful silkiness, richness and nobility.
Cellar it for another 1-2 years, and enjoy it over the following decade.
Very impressive!

From a site on the west side of Paso Robles, not far from Tablas Creek, the 2004 Syrah Hearthstone Vineyard (88 points) offers notes of chocolate, plums, blackcurrants, spice and earth. Its crisp, tart acidity suggests a cooler microclimate. This distinctive, broad, muscular, surprisingly elegant Syrah is difficult to evaluate.

Leaner, more chalky, and mineral-dominated, the terroir-driven 2004 Syrah Morehouse Vineyard (88 points) possesses a deep ruby/purple color and good body.
It comes across as a French-styled offering from California.

The 2003 Syrah Rodney's-Larner's Vineyards (90+ points) exhibits a dark purple color along with beautiful aromas of blackberries, white chocolate, flowers and a subtle resiny character. Rich and concentrated, with sweet but moderate tannin, spice and earth, it should evolve nicely for 5-10 years or longer.

The dense ruby/purple-tinged 2003 Syrah Morehouse Vineyard (88 points) (located off highway 246 between Santa Ynez and Solvang) reveals an earthy/menthol character along with sweet black cherry and blackcurrant fruit, good underlying crisp acidity and fine elegance. This restrained elegant beauty will drink well for 5-7 years.

The opaque purple-hued 2003 Syrah Old Westy-Alisos Vineyard (92 points) reveals an expansive, exuberant, sweet bouquet of blackberries, blueberries, cherries, coffee, licorice and earth. With terrific purity as well as richness, ripe, silky tannin, and a savory, expansive finish, this seductive Syrah should drink well for 7-8 years.

Eric Anderson of Grape-Nutz tasted through 51 of the wines presented at the first of the Santa Barbara County Futures tasting. He ranked our wines high, granting A-‘s to each. Click here to read his review of our 2005 barrel sample Pinot Noirs.

James Laube in Wine Spectator Online also reviewed the Futures wines and rated the Gatekeepers 2005 Pinot Noir as a Solid Buy, 89 to 91 points.

The June edition of The Hanes Wine Review included a review of wine AVA's, with a focus on Santa Rita Hills, and also said:

"Drew Family is quietly rising up the rungs in Santa Barbara towards consistently killer level and their 2003 Syrah blended from different sources and called “Six-Sense” is worth scouting for."

PinotFile (a unique free weekly online newsletter dedicated to Pinot Noir) recently sampled Drew Pinot Noir wines.

"After tasting through the lineup, I found the wines well-made and very representative of Pinot Noirs from the Santa Rita Hills appellation. They were deeply-colored, rich, and powerfully masculine wines with plentiful dark berry flavors. The aromas were full of crushed red and black fruits. All of them had plenty of fine-grain tannins. If I had to pick a favorite it would be the Gatekeepeers which seems more multidimensional and complex and more approachable at this point in time. I also revisited the 2002 Gatekeepers Pinot Noir and found it very similar to the 2003 but with softer tannins and a more silky mouth feel bestowed by added aging."

"Although Sea Smoke is the darling of the Santa Rita Hills at the moment, the Drew wines match up very favorably."

Best of Show in Malibu!

Malibu Wine Classic, April 2, 2005
Our 2003 Syrah, Rodney’s and Larner, was recently awarded the “Best of Show” designation from the Malibu Wine Classic wine competition. This event showcases the wines of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, with all proceeds from the competition and event benefit Childhelp USA.

Taste California Review from Futures
By Mark Storer, Taste California Travel, April 2005
“Highlights of the event included Drew Family Cellars from Solvang, California. A week ago, my friend Chef Chris Watson, now of Bodie’s in Ojai, and his fiancée Erin came to our house for dinner and brought a bottle of Drew's Cabernet Franc. It was delicious, though I'm hard pressed to review it here, as it's hard to recall exact tastes from a week ago. But yesterday, I tasted Drew's Pinot Noir and of all the many exciting offerings of Pinot that day, including notable ones by Rusack, Babcock and Kenneth-Crawford, Drew's stood out. Avoiding the big jammy, syrupy flavors, this Pinot went for the light fruit with notes of red cherry and plum. It was a juicy wine with an understated oak finish that simply melted, velvety, on the palate. Truly tremendous.”

Laube lauds our Gatekeepers Pinot
Wine Spectator, March 18 2005
James Laube recently blind tasted many of the wines being showcased at the Santa Barbara Futures tasting at the Wine Cask. "The Pinots from the Santa Rita Hills appellation are, in many instances, astonishing and among the most exciting wines being made in California today" he notes.
He goes on to say "Several other stellar Pinot Noirs were the Drew Family Santa Rita Hills Gatekeepers 2004 (92-94 points), which features ripe, complex Pinot flavors.." His specific tasting notes on the 2004 Gatekeepers Pinot Noir follow:

DREW FAMILY Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills Gatekeepers 2004
92-94 points
An awesome young wine. Rich, smooth and polished, with a plush core of wild berry, black cherry and blackberry fruit that gushes with flavor and keeps a tight focus on the long, luxurious finish. 350 cases made. --J.L.