Ampelos Pinot Noir Lambda 2012

Yesterday was my best friend/roommate, Kye’s birthday and in celebration we raided our box of wines we brought back from our California trip back in September and opened up an Ampelos Cellars Lambda Pinot Noir 2012. We randomly stumbled on the Ampelos Cellars tasting room while checking out the Lompoc Ghetto our first day there and were really impressed by the wines, especially their Pinot Noirs and a Grenache/Syrah blend they called "Syrache".  

It was also our last stop after a very long day and I wound up making a terrible faux pas. We'd had a 5am flight and I hadn't managed much sleep since insomnia's a bitch, so in my tipsy, exhausted haze I accidentally wound up leaving the very nice and knowledgeable girl who handled our tasting a 20 cent tip instead of the 20% I'd actually meant to. It was pretty damn mortifying since there's nothing I despise more than crappy tippers and 20 cents isn't just crappy, it's downright insulting. I didn't stop feeling guilty until I mailed her a real tip along with a letter apologizing profusely. The owners, Peter and Rebecca Work, wrote me back to reassure me I wasn't the first person to make that sort of mistake which was very nice of them and helped assuage my guilt somewhat. 

From Ampelos Cellars website:

“In 1999 we  purchased 82 acres in what would later become the Sta. Rita Hills appellation (Santa Rita Hills in California is legally Sta. Rita Hills), and named it “Ampelos”, the Greek word for vine. The name has a two-fold purpose. First, we believe that all great wines start in the vineyard. Secondly, we have close ties with Greece; we were married there and own a small bed & breakfast, called Ampelos Resort, on the island of Folegandros. We bought the land with dreams of someday watching the nightly sunset over the hills and our dogs running through the vines.

[...]

A cancelled meeting at the World Trade Center on the morning of September, 11, 2001, brought us to the realization that it was time to pursue our dreams of growing grapes as if tomorrow might never arrive. We quit our corporate jobs and moved permanently to our fledgling vineyard in the southern Sta. Rita Hills AVA to start learning about farming the land from Jeff Newton (Central Vineyard Care).”

We didn't really have high hopes of finding any of their wines in Texas, so I was super thrilled when I started a new job with Spec's and found not one, but two of the Ampelos Pinot Noirs on the shelf (Lambda and the Sta. Rita Hills). There's a fairly decent chance that I did a happy little jig when I saw those bottles, because I am ridiculous like that sometimes.

The Lambda 2012 was still everything I remember it being. A blend of six different clones, 33% aged for about two and a half years in new French oak. Light bodied with bright red fruit, vanilla, cloves and a hint of black pepper. It's a fairly complex wine with moderate acidity and very well balanced. Definitely still one of my favorite California Pinot Noirs!