2006 Melville Estate Pinot Noir, Sta Rita Hills, USA

The 2006 Melville Pinot Noir from Sta. Rita Hills is a highly-rated wine known for its complexity, rich fruit flavors, and elegant profile. While the vintage is a bit older, reviews suggest it was a successful year for the region, showing smooth tannins and fresh fruit. Specific reviews mention flavors of cherry, plum, and currant, with notes of spice, earth, and eucalyptus, and it's often praised for being both powerful and elegant.

93/100 Robert Parker: "The most impressive Pinot Noir for immediate drinking (but certainly capable of lasting a decade as well) is the 2006 Pinot Noir Melville. Sweet floral notes intermixed with black raspberry, black cherry, damp earth, and roasted herbs are followed by a wine with terrific purity, a layered, full-bodied mouth feel, and sweet tannin (the ripest tannins of any of these Pinots). This wine should drink very well young as well as much older." 

"Here's a big, rich, full-bodied and rather extracted wine, made in a powerful style. It shows a gamut of well-ripened cherry, blackberry pie, licorice, grilled wild mushroom and forest floor components, with significant tannins."