Cakebread Two Creeks Vineyard Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

When Jack and Dolores Cakebread founded in 1973, the house ethos was built around the table — a philosophy that drove the deliberate decision to plant Pinot Noir not in Napa but 120 miles northwest in Anderson Valley, where the site's history as an apple orchard signals the cool, fog-driven growing conditions that Burgundy's grape demands. The Two Creeks Vineyard sits on the banks of Anderson Creek in Mendocino County, 46 acres planted in boontling loam and talmage gravelly loam soils — the gravel fraction ensuring sharp drainage while the loam fraction retains just enough moisture through the dry season, producing small, concentrated berries with naturally high acidity. Cakebread's standard protocol applies: hand-harvest at night (a practice locked in since 2004), optical berry sorting, hand-sorting, destemming, and a pre-fermentation cold soak to extract color and soften tannin structure before fermentation begins. Pump-over device selection is used as a precision tannin-management tool rather than a fixed protocol. The special feature here is categorical: this is Cakebread operating entirely outside Napa Valley, sourcing from a site with no Napa identity whatsoever — the Anderson Valley AVA is climatically and geologically distinct, producing Pinot Noir with a cooler-climate tension that the winery's Napa reds cannot replicate. The 2020 vintage was shaped by wildfire smoke pressure across California; Cakebread's selective harvesting practices were deployed to mitigate impact, and the resulting wine carries the vintage's compressed, taut character. Drink 2024–2028.