I belong to several wine clubs and earlier this year in one of the packages was a 2007 Estancia Reserve Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands in California.  The whole Monterey Peninsula and southward is an area that I have enjoyed for years.  I have enjoyed a myriad of wines by different growers throughout the years.

Estancia is a label that I have trusted for years as a good yeoman-like workhorse.  In some restaurants I have been in, it is their top of the line, which is fine, because it is always going to be good and dependable.  What had me curious is that I had never encountered the “Reserve” before.

It was a far better bottle of wine than I had been used to drinking from Estancia, so the word “Reserve” was not just hype.   There is nothing worse, than buying a hyped up label with superlative words and mediocrity in the bottle.   This was a classic Pinot Noir from the area with a richness that one would expect.  I shall continue looking more closely at my future Estancia purchases.