About 2016 Torrin Lagom Bien Nacido Pinot Noir:
Lagom – a sister label to Torrin. The Lagom wines are unique in that they are crafted using fruit sourced from coastal cool climate regions throughout California’s central coast, and they provide a wonderful contrast to the full bodied wines from Paso Robles bottled under Torrin’s main label. While still quite powerful and expressive in typical Torrin style the Lagom wines exhibited wonderful cool climate finesse along with tremendous freshness and structure.
Tasting Notes:
The 2016 Lagom Pinot Noir Bien Nacido sports medium ruby color to go with a meaty, Burgundian style in its savory red and darker fruits, ground herbs, bloody meat, and forest floor aromas and flavors.
Limpid red. An intensely perfumed nose displays mineral-accented cherry and red berry preserve aromas, along with powerful spice and floral topnotes. Juicy, focused and lively on the palate, offering vibrant red currant, strawberry and bitter cherry flavors and a touch of cracked pepper. Gains sweetness on the gently tannic, extremely long and focused finish, which leaves suave candied rose and Asian spice notes behind
Growing Notes:
All from a younger hillside parcel with a southwesterly aspect
Harvest Dates: The winemaker likes to pick fairly late and ripe.
Winemaking Notes:
The wines are made with native yeasts and treated fairly minimally in the cellar. At times, the alcohol comes through, which blurs varietal notes and the signatures of this site.
About The Winery:
Founded by winemaker Scott Hawley and his wife Viquel, Torrin was created to serve as Scott’s personal outlet for completely unbridled expression of what Paso is capable of. Scott’s passion for the region first exploded after he and his then girlfriend Viquel arrived in 2000. Scott was originally brought to Paso Robles to serve as the local winemaker for a branch of a very large California winery. He was quickly able to leverage his experience from working up north in Mendocino as well as his education in enology to not only successfully produce wine on a large scale for his employer, but also to consult for many new and inexperienced wineries that had freshly sprouted up in Paso Robles. Scott’s helpfulness and expertise quickly made him the go-to point of contact for nearly all of his winemaking neighbors, and he would continue on to consult and make wine for many of the region’s greatest new producers that were founded since his arrival. Wineries like Law Estate, Alta Colina, Caliza, plus many more called on Scott to help them get started, and with his guidance each of these quickly emerged as some of the marquee operations in all of Paso Robles.
Torrin’s first vintage came in 2006 with a microscopic production of under 300 cases. While it has always been a passion project for the Hawleys Torrin remained limited in scope for many years as Scott was primarily focused on his consulting work. Despite distractions the Torrin label grew slowly but steadily, yet it was not until 2018 that Scott was able to finally hand over most of his winemaking duties elsewhere and open a dedicated winery and production facility for Torrin to occupy. This brand new modern facility sits on a 30 acre parcel located in Paso Robles’ Templeton Gap sub-appellation and is sufficient to support Torrin’s annual production of just over 2000 cases.