Steele Whites

STEELE PINO BLANC
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

We started making Pinot Blanc so that we would have another white wine besides Chardonnay to have at winmaker dinners. In fact, we often called Pinot Blanc our “baby Chardonnay” This grape is the colorless expression of the red Pinot Noir grape. The Pinot family have very unstable genetics and the result are the many clones of Pinot Noir, the dusky colored white grape called Pinot Gris and this grape the Pinot Blanc.

As a coastal area, Santa Barbara is heavily influenced and as a result, grape ripening was considerably delayed. Fortunately, very little rain fell during the ripening period and we were able to harvest clean fruit.

We source all of our Pinot Blanc from Santa Barbara County. Until this vintage we relied upon fruit from Bien Nacido Vineyard. This vintage however we were able to get some Pinot Blanc from Goodchild Vineyard which lies across the Sisquoc River from Bien Nacido. The fruit from this area tends to have tropical fruit aromas and flavors, we also find a green apple character in Pinot Blanc. Like our Chardonnays we ferment Pinot Blanc in French Oak barrels however, we use only 20% new oak and bottle the wine in the early spring. This brings out more of the fruit and gives us a crisp, fruity wine with just a hint of oak. The combination of less new oak and shorter time in oak makes Pinot Blanc a great value and it is our favorite wine for summer drinking.