Kevin Harvey’s Rhys Vineyards has built up a near cult like following in just a decade of releases. His bottlings of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah from both the Santa Cruz Mountains and now also the Anderson Valley in Mendocino are rightly seen as amongst the very top echelon of wines produced anywhere in the United States.
Everything about these wines speaks of attention to detail and a deep commitment to making great wine. From purchasing uncoopered staves of the finest French oak a full four years prior to cooperage, to the vast underground purpose built winemaking cellar, no detail is left to chance. In the often steep vineyards, vine density is extremely high and as a result farming is entirely manual and very labour intensive. In the winery, vinification is carried out at a micro-level in tiny 4ft square vats: fermentations are native and everything is gravity-fed without pumping, fining or filtration. In essence, the wines are given kid gloves treatment, and then aged in almost neutral French barrels, so better to promote the site specific characters of the vineyards in the portfolio.
ABOUT RHYS
In a little over two decades, Kevin Harvey’s Rhys Vineyards has built up a near cult-like following. His bottlings of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah from both the Santa Cruz Mountains and now also the Anderson Valley in Mendocino are rightly seen as amongst the very top echelon of wines produced anywhere in the United States.
Everything about these wines speaks of attention to detail and a deep commitment to making great wine. From purchasing uncoopered staves of the finest French oak a full four years prior to cooperage, to the vast underground purpose-built winemaking cellar, no detail is left to chance. In the often-steep vineyards, vine density is extremely high and as a result farming is entirely manual and very labour intensive. In the winery, vinification is carried out at a micro-level in tiny 4ft square vats: fermentations are native, and everything is gravity-fed without pumping, fining or filtration. In essence, the wines are given kid gloves treatment, and then aged in almost neutral French barrels, so better to promote the site-specific characters of the vineyards in the portfolio. Kevin’s passion was ignited by a bottle of Russian River Pinot which led him to experiment in his backyard up in the Santa Cruz mountains (now the Home Vineyard). Astounded by the raw potential, this soon blossomed into the hunt for a very particular type of vineyard site. Inspired by the Grand Crus of Burgundy, the Rhys team went in search of some of the coolest hillside sites in the region, with shallow topsoils over diverse and ancient bedrock. His aim was to push Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to their Californian limits, forcing grapes to ripen fully while retaining a natural tension and minerality, all the while at remarkably low levels of alcohol (generally the wines fall between 12% and 13.5% abv).
By utilising high (and occasionally ultra-high) density plantings, dry farming, cutting back on all vineyard fertiliser and fine tuning their clonal and root stock selections (or lack thereof), the Rhys model is producing wines of ever greater intensity and precision. Pure flavours abound; the wines have silken mineral textures, tension, freshness, great acidity, subtle yet commanding profiles, plenty of stony earthy complexity and the transparency of truly great Pinot Noir. The Chardonnays are both intense yet restrained, playing delicate reductive notes off against pin-point fruit. They have incredible tension and precision not to mention excellent site specificity. Needless to say, they also have plenty of propensity for ageing. Across both varieties, these taste like Premier and Grand Cru Burgundies made with a little Californian Sunshine.
VINYARDS OF RHYS
RHYS SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS
The Rhys appellation bottlings seem to go from strength to strength. As of the 2016 vintage the fruit for these bottlings comes exclusively from Rhys’ estate grown single vineyards; allowing Jeff to dial in his single vineyard releases, while offering up an earlier drinking snapshot of the overall Rhys philosophy. These 2021s feel more like single vineyard releases than ever before. They come highly recommended
BEARWALLOW VINEYARD, ANDERSON VALLEY
The only vineyard the Rhys team have in the remote Anderson Valley, 100 miles north of San Francisco in Mendocino County. Purchased by Rhys in 2008, with, uniquely for them, 6 acres already under vine, they promptly added a further 25 acres – vineyards that are now in full production. This end of the Anderson Valley, and the Bearwallow vineyard in particular, is the source of full yet elegant Pinot Noir that tends to have a slightly deeper fruit set and more succulence than the Santa Cruz mountains wines, and often culminates in the Bearwallow ‘sting’ – a peacocks tail of crisp minerality that brings the finish to life
Soils: Fractured Shale and Sandstone
Distance to Ocean: 10 miles
Elevation: 385 ft
RHYS FAMILY FARM VINEYARD Family farm is a northeast facing vineyard on alluvial sand and clay soils distinct from any other vineyard in the Rhys range. Set at a slightly lower elevation than the other mountain vineyards, it has tended in the past to produce wines with a more fruit forward, spicy character that sometimes felt a little rustic next to the higher sites. This approachability has not changed, but recent bottlings have felt much more refined and sophisticated.
Soils: Alluvial Clay Loam
Distance to Ocean: 9.5 miles
Elevation: 377.25 ft.
MT. PAJARO VINEYARD, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS
Mt. Pajaro is the new kid on the block and a certain future challenger to the current established top vineyards in the Rhys portfolio. Situated 30 miles south of Alpine and Horseshoe, 7 miles from Monteray Bay, in a hilly area that sees the San Andreas fault split into a smaller faults. Being the most recent planting, Mt. Pajaro, on rocky, sedimentary Shale soils, is the beneficiary of all the accumulated knowledge from the previous five vineyard developments. It is planted to the same very high-density planting as Skyline and Porcupine hill, with a massale selection from the finest experimental blocks from Alpine. The wines we’ve tasted from this site are intense, complex and tightly wound at first. They show enormous promise already.
Soils: Shallow clay over brown and black Mt. Pajaro Shale
Distance to Ocean: 7 miles
Elevation: 717 - 980 ft.
HORSESHOE VINEYARD, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS Along with Alpine, this is one of the iconic Rhys vineyards. The two are just half a mile from each other yet tend to produce remarkably different wines; Horseshoe tending to more minerality, impact and structure while Alpine favours seamless elegance and intensity. The Horseshoe vineyard reaches up to 1600 ft above sea level and is cooled by marine influences, including the fog, though less directly than Alpine. The soils are very shallow, the vines hitting the Monterray Shale bedrock almost immediately; an ancient sedimentary formation that is brittle and well-draining, providing low vigour for the vines and corresponding intensity in the final wines.
Soils: Monterray Shale, Volcanic ash and limestone
Distance to Ocean: 10.5 miles
Elevation: 1310 – 1600 ft.
ALPINE VINEYARD, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS A steep, precarious vineyard that is directly influenced by the Ocean’s cooling influence, often shrouded in fog, with steep slopes and a white chalky shale soils. It is only half a mile from Horseshoe and yet much cooler as a result of those direct marine influences – though unusually for a cool Californian site, pretty much sheltered from the wind – a decisive factor in the ethereal beauty of the resulting wines. Alpine’s Pinot’s have a coiled elegant intensity about them, more floral and darker fruited than the Horseshoe bottlings, with ultra-fine tannins and a laser like intensity and finish to them. The Chardonnays are salty, seamless and high definition – marine influenced and intense yet beautifully balanced. Planted to a wide variety of clones, both heritage and ‘suitcase’, this is a great Santa Cruz vineyard capable of producing some of the region’s most complex and sophisticated wines with plenty of hidden layers to reveal to those with patience.
Soils: Chalky Purisma Shale
Distance to Ocean: 10 miles
Elevation: 1300 – 1400 ft.
Skyline Vineyard, Santa Cruz Mountains
Skyline is unique in so many ways. At 2360 feet it is probably the highest Pinot Noir vineyard in the entire state of California, with some of the thinnest topsoils of any of the Rhys parcels; in places, the vines look like they’re planted directly into the bedrock. It’s a tough environment, made tougher by the ultra-high-density planting. At 17000 vines per hectare, Kevin and Jeff reckon it takes around 6 vines to produce a single bottle – a fact that makes little economic sense, and yet somehow very concisely explains what an extraordinary wine this site produces. Just like Swan terrace, Skyline repays patience. The sheer intensity of the flavours, the combination of exotic minerality and fruit, takes a while to unwind. But when it does great things await.
For Kevin Harvey, owner of Rhys Vineyards, Skyline Vineyard is the jewel in his estate. The wines produced from this difficult site are the most crystalline, mineral, and complex of the Rhys range. They’re also probably the least profitable; it’s the highest vineyard in their portfolio, the lowest yielding (incredibly, six vines are needed to produce a single bottle), the hardest to farm and often the slowest to mature. The topsoil is so scarce the bedrock protrudes between the vines. Ultra-high density plantings suffer in the driest years, and very often catch the fog during flowering. In short, it’s a wine geek’s dream vineyard, and it produces unbelievably singular wines.
Soils: A mosaic of fractured Mudstone, Sandstone and Limestone
Distance to Ocean 14 miles
Elevation: 2360ft.
2016 Vintage
2016 is a vintage of stunning quality at Rhys. Tasting them we were thrilled at the sheer precision and fine weighting that runs across the range. Structurally they are more lithe than their 2015 counterparts, with a greater sense of nuance and refinement. Antonio Gallonio sings their praises, referring to them as “a positively stellar set of wines”, while Jeff Brinkman, Rhys’ Winemaker was equally bold in his assertion that “these are without question the best wines we’ve produced since 2012”.
The keys to the vintage lie firstly in plentiful winter rain preceding what was essentially another drought growing season. Secondly, a mild August with cool nights set the tempo for a measured, even keeled final maturation and a harvest carried out in calm conditions. This allowed every densely planted low-yielding plot to be selected at optimal ripening, often over multiple pickings. The resulting range is the best we’ve tasted – a masterclass in transparency and site. Whilst the 2014s had depth and structure, and the 2015s were characterised by a sense of heft and power, this range of 2016s is defined by grace and poise, texture, detail and finesse. As ever, Rhys manage to pack in a huge amount of complexity and intensity, not to mention marked site characteristics, while maintaining very moderate alcoholic strengths of between 12.2 and 13%.
2016 Alesia
For a more immediate look at Rhys brilliance there is the Alesia label. Previously a sister label, Alesia is now (from 2016) entirely produced from estate grown fruit and the uplift in quality is remarkable. The Pinot Noir now includes all of their Parajo vineyard fruit (soon to be a vineyard designate); a high density planting from the South of the Santa Cruz Mountains, while the Chardonnay comes from a variety of estate single vineyard sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The 2016s are in a superb place today, showing plenty of Santa Cruz minerality and high altitude freshness to go with their Californian charm. The Pinot is hugely moreish yet has an almost Burgundian shape on the finish, as crushed rocks and stones take over from the delicate fruit; the Chardonnay is saline, classy and composed, with lovely purity and measured but beautifully ripe fruit interwoven with delicate butter notes.
2017 Vintage
2017 was typically warm and dry, though crucially it saw heavy rains early in the season, a deluge that brought a welcome end to the five-year Californian drought. Flowering was untroubled and the warm season led to harvest starting at the end of August, two weeks earlier than normal. Perhaps most notably for growers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, early September saw a record-breaking heat spike so intense it put ripening on hold (rather than accelerating it) and forced the Rhys team to wait a further two weeks before continuing to harvest. Utterly remarkably, the resulting wines bear no hallmarks of hot weather, are low in alcohol with soaring aromatic profiles and finely balanced structures. They’re a sheer joy to taste, sleek, detailed, long and charming, with melting tannins and plenty of acidity and energy to them. Such is the ease with which they blend seriousness with levity, one bottle is sadly, seldom enough…
2018 Vintage (Whites)
The 2018 whites from Rhys Vineyards are not just the best Chardonnays we’ve tasted from the States, but we think they would happily sit up there alongside just about anything you’d care to chose from anywhere in the world of great Chardonnay. Retasting the Horseshoe Chardonnay a day after opening it, we found ourselves wondering if this wasn’t California’s answer to the whites from Domaine d’Auveney. A big call, granted, but there’s something about the way these whites push the limits in so many directions yet remain utterly and deliciously drinkable at the same time that does recall incisive white Burgundy. Intense minerality, beautifully judged smoky reduction, crisp precise citrus fruit flecked with salt, the texture of fine cream, power yet finesse – there’s much to enjoy.
2018 was an auspicious vintage in the Santa Cruz Mountains and comes hot on the heels of the hard fought 2017 triumphs. With the exception of a hot July that encouraged the development of thick skins, it proved to be a measured growing season, particularly August and September, resulting in a reasonably late harvest and a gentle accumulation of sugars and flavours in the grapes. The whites, vinified in a typically neutral manner by Jeff Brinkman and his team, show an impeccable combination of balance and intensity with exceptionally crystalline aromas and brilliant minerality.
2018 Vintage (Reds)
These 2018s, from a generally untroubled vintage, are textbook Rhys. They deserve a little patience, but already display a gorgeous interplay between fruit, spice, and minerality, with transparent fruit delivery, textures that caress, and plenty of inner tension. With no hard edges these are Pinots of great seduction and beguiling interest – a range that that shows off the Rhys style beautifully. For a PDF of the full offer, complete with vineyard information, tasting notes and critics’ scores, please click here.
The 2019 vintage
Across California 2019 makes for an excellent follow up to 2018, and the story at Rhys is no exception. These new releases complete a brace of stunning years in advance of the fire ravaged 2020s, when there will be almost no wines offered at all. Given the quality on offer in these 2019s, we recommend stocking up! Plentiful rainfall in the spring set the scene for a vintage of very little struggle in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Flowering went well, crop set was untroubled, and the ensuing vintage was on the cooler side of the spectrum, though not without the odd period of heat. And it was dry. Harvest when it arrived was carried out in mild conditions, which allowed for optimal picking across the various estate vineyards. At our tastings in the Santa Cruz mountains in February we found a range of individual and extremely vivid 2019s that we fell completely in love with – from a best-ever Family Farm to a Skyline that took our breath away, not to mention the most complex pair of Horseshoe wines we’ve tasted here. “Positively stellar across the board” writes Antonio Galloni on Vinous.com, and we wholeheartedly agree.
To our taste, the 2019 Pinots have a little more immediate charm and approachability than the 2018s, while lacking none of the complexity and elegance you’d expect from this estate. For Chardonnay, if anything the wines have a touch more concentration than their 2018 siblings.
A recent visit from Jeff Brinkman gave us the opportunity to re-taste his superb 2019 Pinots. While the more illustrious vineyards situated on the poorest, rockiest soils possess tremendous promise and deserve a little longer in the cellar; we discovered the Family Farm cuvee was already in a beautiful place. Very definitely a Santa Cruz Mountain wine, this is a vineyard whose richer alluvial soils produce tender, charming wines that are approachable early on, developing a more savoury, exotic side after a few years in bottle.
The 2019 displays perfectly polished mountain berry fruit accented by black tea and pine notes on the nose. With plenty of engaging succulence it is supple and pliant on the palate, offering up waves of silky fruit, then tempering them with herbs, citrus and notes of the forest. It is fresh through the finish, which has a typically tapering shape to it, and a satisfying sense of symmetry. As an entry into the upper reaches of the Rhys range it is hard to beat, and while earlier vintages sometimes presented the more rustic side of Mountain pinot, since 2018, the wines from this site have possessed a level of refinement and polish that makes them feel like worthy siblings to the wines coming from Horseshoe and Alpine.
Another wine that showed off for us was the Alesia 2019 – soon to be relabelled as simply Rhys Santa Cruz Mountains. The fruit for these cuvees comes exclusively from the Rhys estate owned single vineyards in the SC mountains, ergo Mt. Pajaro, Horeseshoe, Alpine, Family Farm and Skyline. The 2019 is extremely pretty, red fruited, fine grained, open and present – with plenty of fruit intensity. Weighing in at just 12.5% abv it offering up sheer drinkability and exceptional value for the equivalent of a 1er cru blend; the perfect introduction to the elegant, style of mountain Pinot Noir that Rhys are capable of producing.
2020 Vintage
Sadly for followers of the estate, not to mention Kevin and Jeff, the well documented wildfires of 2020 did not spare the Santa Cruz Mountains. As a result, none of the single vineyards closest to the winery were produced – so that’s no Horseshoe, Alpine, Skyline or Family Farm this year. But all was not lost. Looking to the southern end of the mountain range, Mt. Pajaro was spared, while to the north, Bearwallow was also unaffected. Both of these vineyards have produced extremely fine wines, up there with the best we’ve tasted. As such, we’re excited to be offering Bearwallow Chardonnay for the first time; a weightier and fleshier offering than the fine boned and mineral Mt. Pajaro.
It was a warm season with a couple of heat spikes, but by following their typically attentive regime, dry farming their high-density plantings and picking early, the Rhys team has managed to maintain genuine elegance and definition in these 2020s. Fans of the estate will find much to enjoy in the racy minerality of Mt. Pajaro, or the richer and more powerful expression from Bearwallow. Both come highly recommended. The two Rhys SCM bottlings, both exclusively Mt Pajaro fruit, offer up more immediate expressions of the single vineyard releases and will delight from the off.
2021 Vintage
When a winery like Rhys vineyards produces its best vintage to date, there’s cause to sit up and take note. These are, in our opinion, some of the very best Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs being made on the West Coast of America – wines of such sophistication and calibre that we’d happily slip them into any lineup of world class bottles.
In their third decade of production, Kevin Harvey and Jeff Brinkman are flying. With fully established vineyards, a keen understanding of the challenges and opportunities of each site, and a thoughtful, un-dogmatic and light touch approach in the winery, they appear to be reaching peak sensibility. The ease with which they commune with each of their sites is so easy see in this range of 2021s, it is no wonder Antonio Galloni singled it out as his winery of the year, stating “I tasted many memorable wines this year, but one range stands out. The 2021s at Rhys are off the charts.”
The whites have impeccable balance, wonderful intensity and great precision and energy. If you enjoy the whites of Domaine Leflaive or Paul Pillot, the shape of these wines should feel familiar. The reds in 2021 are magnificent and will undoubtedly repay cellaring. The shatter at flowering led to loose clusters with lots of tiny grapes, which has instilled the final wines with layers of flavour and structure that will stand these wines in great stead as they age.
We have not tasted a more serious, complex and impressive range. Yet another drought year, 2021 experienced moderately warm to hot temperatures but crucially never faced any serious heat events. Yields were down, due to the poor flowering, and harvest came early. Seeing the potential, Jeff chose to ferment slightly cooler than usual, with gentler foot treading, and practically all press wine sold off in bulk. Just as up in Napa, the resulting 2021s have a natural concentration allied to freshness. Those lucky enough to own them will have a terrific time following them over the coming years and decades.
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