Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
Golden West is rooted in completing the story of Washington State.
Winemaker, Charles Smith has successfully shown that Washington, like France, can produce great Rhone varietals, Bordeaux varietals and aromatic whites. They began our story of Burgundy with SIXTO; Golden West came from the idea that where Chardonnay lives, so does Pinot Noir.
There is plenty of high-end Pinot Noir in the market and not enough at a really good price that nearly everyone can afford. Golden West fulfills the promise of what they set out to do: to bring really great wine to a lot more people.
The label is meant to show you where the wine is grown; to show both the geography of Golden West and that it’s handmade and agricultural. When people think of Pinot Noir, they think artisanal and small. The layers of color signal both the complexity and simplicity of what’s in the bottle.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”