We've been growing Pinot Noir grapes in Philo and making wine from these vineyards since 1978. Had someone told us forty years ago that we would still be experimenting on how to vinify estate Pinot Noir in 2017, we would have been dumbfounded. We frequently compare winemaking to cooking, which is a fair analogy if you're comparing cleanup to prep time. Winemaking however is focused almost entirely on a single ingredient; how the grapes are grown and processed becomes the ultimate variable. Weather has a noticeable effect on the fruit our vines produce, so each year many of Navarro's winemaking regimes are adjusted to nudge the outcome yet still capture the essence of the vineyard and the vintage. For example, we've learned that pumping over and saignée (removing some free-run juice to make a heavier wine) manipulate Pinot Noir too much, so we now avoid these practices. Other regimes, like fermentation temperatures and frequency of punch-downs, are frequently tested and modified to suit the vintage.

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