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Wes on Pinot Noir from WineAlongThe 101.com
(Posted December 18, 2008)
Happy Holidays from the Clos!
Futures Sales Close 12/31/08 and 2007's are released February 1, 2009!
Get Ready for the Pink!
Clos Pepe Estate is Proud
to Announce the Impending
Release of Two New Wines:
2007 Blanc de Noir
2008 Rose of Pinot Noir
Scheduled: 2/1/08:
Futures Coming Soon!
First PN picked: for Tyler Wines 2008 Pinot Noir 'Clos Pepe'
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2007 Vintage Wine Futures:
Wines Are Now in Bottle ,
On Sale Now!
Don't miss out on the exceptional 2007 Estate wines from Clos Pepe! The pinots are plummy, luscious and structured (and only 14% alcohol!), and the Chardonnay has great richness and bright green apple fruit with hints of mineral. Of course the Chardonnay is done in the oak-less Old Chablis style. They are on sale as Futures through the end of the year and will be released on Feb 1 2009 (with the 2008 Olive Oil, which is also on sale at Futures pricing.)
NEW FEATURE: OLIVE OIL--START TO FINISH
Click here to view a Slideshow of Our 2007 Olive Oil Harvest!
(^^5 MB file--takes a minute to load^^)

The Clos Pepe Philosophy:
"We strive to produce wines that represent a time and a place. In a landscape where critics heap praise on 'heavy metal' wines more akin to fortified wine than a beverage for table, we believe that wine should integrate into a meal--we hope our customers discuss the flavors of wine and food and how they combine to make an experience. Great craft impresses not with an insistence that it be the sole focus of a room, but instead by its ability to integrate. I like to make wines that tell a story: a story of wind, fog, sunshine and the hard work of our crew. This vineyard has as much potential for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as we are willing to imagine and draw from it with passion and labor. In this sense I want the wines to be 'jazz' over 'heavy metal'--a reflection of craft embedded in an ever-changing environment instead of a homogenized attempt to kowtrow to the gods of concentration." --Wes Hagen, February 2008
Environmental sustainability: No herbicides, no insecticides, no restricted materials. Integration of livestock and animals for diversity and organic pest control: sheep for weeding/fertilization, all green materials composted and reapplied in the vineyard, owl boxes/raptor perches for rodent control, retired greyhounds for rabbit and coyote control.
Social sustainability: We believe sustainable viticulture is meaningless without a similar concern for the people that work on the farm. We think it's a shame that some farmers are more concerned with their compost than their people. Less chemicals means a safer environment to work in, it's true, but we also offer our permanent field workers medical benefits for them and their families. It's an expensive farming practice, one that's almost unheard of in agriculture, but we think its worth it. When we pour Clos Pepe wine, we can feel comfortable knowing that everyone who touched the vines, the fruit and the wine were respected.
Visiting Clos Pepe and the Santa Rita Hills:
Tour Updates: We will be suspending tours starting in late September due to harvest. We will fire our tours back up in late October or early November. Thanks for understanding, sometimes making wine has to be a priority!
Virtual Video Tour: Check out a shortened version of our Clos Pepe tour/tasting HERE. Thanks to John Lordi for the video production! It will take a while to load, but if you can't make it to the vineyard, this will give you the overview of who we are and what we do up here. Not to be missed!

Clos Pepe Wins a Green Award! Santa Barbara has awarded Clos Pepe Vineyards with one of only 4 Green Awards for 2007. Read more HERE.
Not Getting Your Allocation Discount? If you log in and don't get your Allocation Discount (for previous customers and those who've signed up previously), send me an email! Discount are also available for those customers in the wine trade.
Awards!: L.A. County Fair's 'Los Angeles International Wine Competition' (the largest and oldest Fair wine competition in the U.S.) released its results this weekend, and we did very well: GOLD MEDAL was awarded to our 2005 Estate Pinot Noir and BEST OF CLASS: Domestic Medium was awarded to our 2006 Clos Pepe Estate Olive Oil. The Olive Oil has been sold out for months, but the 2005 Pinot Noir is still available at the store, by phone or by order form. The 2005 Pinot Noir just received 92 point rating from redwinebuzz.com as well.
Rather Order by Fax? If faxing an order form seems easier than ordering online, just send Wes Hagen an email with a request for a faxable order form. Send your request to: wes@clospepe.com .
- Shipping: Where are the wines I ordered? Simply put, we are very picky about when we ship wine. With as much time and craft invested in these wines, the last thing we want to do is have them bake in a hot truck. So--we have mostly stopped shipping for the Summer. We check weather each Monday just in case, but if you have a pending order you can expect it to ship after harvest when things cool down significantly. I expect most orders will be shipped by the end of October unless we're still pressing wine. If we choose the time to send your wine it is guaranteed to arrive in sound condition. We are always willing to ship on your request, but we can't promise the wine will arrive in the same condition in which it left the cellar. I was perhaps a little late in releasing the 2007 Rose' and some of the 2001 Library releases, as I fully expected to be able to ship them for this Summer's enjoyment. The Spring heated up fast throughout the country, and I have erred on the side of caution on most orders. Again, if you want it sent, send me an email, but we recommend Fall.
- Pick-Up Policy: Picking up your wine may sound easier than it actually is, and that is why we recommend you have your wine shipped. The pick-up option is more for locals and those that visit often, as we find that a full 10% of pickup orders are never retrieved and take up more space than we can sacrifice. We are willing to cellar your Clos Pepe purchases for on-site pickup up to one year from release. That means we will hold your order to be picked up here at the vineyard for one full year from the February release date. We send out at least one email alert for pick-ups each year and offer two to three events yearly for easy pick-up: SBCVA Vintner's Festival Open House in April, and the Sta. Rita Hills Winegrowers Event in June. These events make sure that you have a chance to come and nibble and sip here at the Clos, and have an excuse to come and get your wine. It is your responsibility to set up a pick up, and wines older than three years past vintage date in February will be put back in general inventory. (For example, 2006 wines are held for pickup until February, 2009.) To avoid missing this deadline, we do recommend having your wine shipped on release, in the cool of February.
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'Burghound' Allen Meadows Reviews the
Clos Pepe Estate 2006 Pinot Noir: 91 Points
There's not a lot of critics I expect to impress by making wines meant to age and put at table. Allen Meadows is the US authority on Burgundy wine, and has only recently started to review California Pinot Noir. To me, he 'gets it': pinot is not meant to impress with weight and extract, it's meant to show a time and a place--earth and restraint over muscle and extraction. We're really stoked he dug the 2006 Estate Pinot Noir! Many of the 'cult' wines got taken to task in this publication for their clumsy, overripe style, and we're excited to see a critic who sees through the flash and recognizes producers concerned with balance, elegance and food friendliness.
From Burghound #28, October,. 2008
"2006 Clos Pepe Estate Pinot Noir – Sta Rita Hills: (bottled at 14.5%; $56). A wonderfully complex and beguiling nose features ripe but very fresh aromas of cranberry, raspberry, earth and subtle spice notes that introduce precise, intense and balanced middle weight flavors culminating in a vibrant, precise and beautifully persistent finish that displays a hint of youthful austerity. This is really impressively pure and quite refined and I particularly like the balance and drive with absolutely no sense of undue weight or heaviness, indeed the only nit that I can point out is a slight trace of backend warmth. 91 POINTS /Drink until 2012+"
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Fall, 2008 Website/Newsletter Special Feature:
Clos Pepe Label Art Through the Years

**Wes Blogs Visit PinotHarvest.com!**
Ventura County Star: Winery of the Month is Clos Pepe Estate!
Thinking About Scheduling a Tour After Harvest? Check Out This Review:
"Comparing this experience to all the other wine tastings I have been to would be the equivalent of a person who had watched B movies his whole life viewing "The Godfather" or "Citizen Kane" for the first time. The three hours I spent at Clos Pepe were the best wine-tasting experience I have ever had. It was fun, educational and elegantly down to earth." --Russ Briley, Wine Writer Ventura County Star.
Read the whole story here: Click for Ventura County Star Article
"In California (as everywhere), wine regions want to be thought of as special. A region that’s perceived as special can charge more money for their wines, which in turn lets them invest in their viticulture and enology and make the wines even better. This is why every wine region in California is secretly jealous of Napa Valley (not that they’d admit it).
But not every wine region can be special. It’s a law of the universe. In this day and age of marketing, though, wine regions do the most amazing things to promote themselves as special. They form regional associations, charge dues, and hire publicists to, well, publicize their attributes and paint them in the best possible light. Nothing wrong with that. If you’re a wine region and you don’t blow your own horn, you’ve got a problem.
Which makes it all the more remarkable when a new wine region comes on the scene and achieves fame even before they have a functioning association and with hardly lifting a finger to promote themselves. I’m talking about the Santa Rita Hills appellation of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley.
Sta. Rita Hills (as the name must appear on the label to avoid a conflict of interest with Chile’s Santa Rita Winery) is probably most famous as the main location of the movie Sideways, but that film did not create SRH’s fame. I can’t even recall that the words “Santa Rita Hills” were ever uttered in the movie. (If anyone knows, please tell me.) Besides, wine critics are not about to salivate over a wine region simply because it’s in a movie.
No, the critics began praising SRH in the ‘90s, and the pace has simply accelerated in the 2000s. Today, I think it’s safe to say that SRH stands as one of the greatest places in the New World to grow Pinot Noir (and they do a great job at Chardonnay and Syrah and Pinot Gris and perhaps one or two others).
And they got there on their own — not with fancy marketing packages and press kits and events with celebrity auctioneers. Not with spin and hype. Not by luring in big spenders with resorts and great restaurants and golf courses. They did it the old-fashioned way: They earned it. (I can still hear John Houseman saying those words.)
They earned it through the dogged efforts of people like Richard Sanford, who was there (with his partner, Michael Benedict) when everyone else thought they were crazy. They did it through the pioneering of guys like Brian Babcock …through the vision and hard work of a younger generation of idealists, like Greg Brewer, Steve Clifton, Wes Hagen and Kathy Joseph. They put the Santa Rita Hills on the world wine map for the most fundamental reason of all: the quality of the wines.
It’s an important lesson for California’s other wine regions (there are more than 100 AVAs, with more on the way). Quality comes first. Figure out what you do better than anyone else, and then do it. Fame will surely follow."
(Tasted Spring, 2008. Wines with links are available for sale.)
Take a virtual tour of Clos Pepe ten years ago! See the front gate, the vineyards, and the Old Courtyard
Click here to start low bandwidth tour or here to start high bandwidth tour
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