It’s #WineWednesday and I’m pouring the last bottle (oh no!) of wine from my Winestyr box. Today’s pour is a 2014 Waits-Mast Pinot Noir from Wentzel Vineyard in Anderson Valley, California.

Winestyr spends countless hours searching for the best small wine producers. Based in Sonoma County, California, their mission is to relentlessly curate the best selection of small production wines possible and make them accessible to consumers. They boast an unprecedented access to a curated collection of wines from over 7,000 wineries in the United States. Most of these producers are actually too small to warrant the attention of retailers, so they are genuinely hard to find. They have combed the country for the best producers, met with hundreds of winemakers, and tasted thousands of wines, with the favorites joining their website.

Courtesy Waits-Mast Family Cellars

Waits-Mast Family Cellars was founded by Brian Mast and Jennifer Waits in 2005. Before they started making wine, they were passionate wine consumers. They spent many weekend getaways exploring wineries across California and a few special trips to France, Switzerland, and New Zealand. By 2000, they were attending the Anderson Valley Pinot Noir Festival and sitting in on the event’s technical conference. The Pinot Noir immersion that weekend, along with the warm and welcoming wine community of Anderson Valley, prompted them to take their love for Pinot Noir to a new level. In 2005, they crafted their first barrel of Pinot Noir and by 2007 they launched Waits-Mast Family Cellars as a small, yet focused commercial brand that cemented their shift from wine geeks to winemakers.

Courtesy Waits-Mast Family Cellars

This bottle of Pinot Noir, in particular, comes from Roland and Barbara Wentzel’s 10-acre vineyard near Philo. It stands at roughly 900 feet high in elevation and is organically farmed within an expansive 300+ acre forested property. The particular plot of land that Waits-Mast gets their fruit from is called “the clos,” as it is a fenced-in block situated up the hill. The block, made up of Dijon clones, has north-south rows with a north-west orientation, terraced up a steep hillside, so the grapes benefit from the long afternoon sunlight, tempered by cool offshore breezes. In 2014, they doubled their production (four barrels instead of two) and they also added some whole clusters (about 25%) to the fermentation—a rare technique for their small winery.

This wine is medium ruby red with dark cherry, red fruit, and spice on the nose. On the palate, it dives into those red fruit and berry flavors with vanilla and oak notes. The wine should be drunk from now until 2022, so I’m curious about the flavors developing with age. You can buy it on the website for $47. It was a nice wine that I split with my pinot loving momma. I paired it with faux fall vibes (haha). Cheers!