Pinot Noir wine quality is affected by crop level and Navarro's thinning experiments have shown that our best red Pinot wines were achieved with crop levels between 2.5 to 4.5 tons per acre—above that crop level the wines were thinner and below that level the wines were too heavy and muscular. For vine health, when we prune our vineyards we try to match the vigor of the vine by retaining the appropriate amount of buds. However in the following spring, Pinot Noir vines typically set more clusters than desired for red wine production, requiring that we thin the crop before veraison—Pinot Noir is our most expensive grape to grow. In the winery, costs are also high because the best Pinot Noir wines have been fermented for centuries using labor-intensive pigeage in small fermenters to keep the juice and skins mixed rather than using modern pumps and large tanks.

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