The 2016 Pinot Noir Machado showed beautifully, with the rounded, supple, and opulent style of this great vintage front and center. Loads of candied cherries, raspberries, spice, and floral notes all define the bouquet, and it has no hard edges and wonderful balance. It’s going to continue drinking brilliantly for another decade or more. This was another thrilling lineup from Greg Brewer, and I consistently rate these wines as some of the greatest in the Sta. Rita Hills, as well as all of Santa Barbara County. In addition to the latest releases, I was also able to taste retrospectives of his Chardonnay 3D and Pinot Noir Machado, which only reaffirmed my belief in the quality and age-worthiness of these wines. These are brilliant wines.

The 2016 Pinot Noir Machado is quite tight-knit after its very recent bottling, unwinding in the glass with notions of cherry, strawberry preserve, rose petal, cinnamon and orange rind—seemingly the most floral and high-toned of these 2016s. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, supple and fine-boned, without the power and richness of the Hapgood or 3D, but endowed with lovely energy. This was a lovely set of wines from Greg Brewer, and they were very expressive despite their recent bottling. Brewer observed that some of his cuvées even seemed a little more precociously fruity than they generally are so early in their lives. Whole cluster fermentation and neutral oak continue to be the order of the day here, and the style of these 2016s is very much what readers will be accustomed to from Brewer-Clifton, though my sense is that Brewer is picking just a touch earlier these days than was the case last decade. William Kelley