Rarely, if ever, do I use this space to tell anyone to “do” anything; I express my thoughts and leave it up to the reader to decide whether or not to buy a wine. Not today. Here is a wine you should buy: the 2024 MacPhail Pinot Noir Toulouse Vineyard.

A little back story. James MacPhail, after a few years of making wine for labels such as Gary Farrell, Unti, and Merry Edwards, started his own brand, MacPhail Family Wines in 2001, with the first vintage coming out the following year. James quickly established a reputation for bold, high-quality Pinot Noir (and later, Chardonnay), focused on expressing the vineyard with minimal intervention.

Then came 2008. While most remember the year for the financial crisis, it was also a lost vintage for many due to the numerous wildfires that ravaged Sonoma County. Those two factors, along with James opening his own winery, necessitated an influx of capital to keep the brand afloat. Enter the Hess Collection, which, after another couple of years, purchased the MacPhail Family Wines brand outright in 2011.

The story then took a familiar turn: small, but popular brand sold to larger producer, original winemaker stays on as a consultant, original winemaker leaves, brand starts to go downhill, never to regain the status that it had originally achieved. That is a story that has happened perhaps countless times in California, with a few exceptions, of course, but many of the brands I have loved over the years have suffered a similar fate.

But this one has a decidedly different ending: James got his brand back.

After establishing his new brand, Tongue Dancer Wines, as one of the top small brand producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, in Sonoma County, and his success as an Independent Winemaker (James eschews the term “consultant”), James started to think about reacquiring the MacPhail brand. At first, it was just that, a thought, but he had remained in contact with many people at Hess and in early 2024, an agreement was reached, and James had his brand back.

He decided, in a full-circle kind of way, to start where he began back in 2002, with the same vineyard, the same blocks, the same clones, resulting in the 2024 MacPhail Family Wines Pinot Noir, Toulouse Vineyard, Anderson Valley.

I was sent a bottle of this glorious wine back in May, one of the first to receive it, and it was astounding. It goes on sale today at 9:00 pacific (noon on the east coast, 11:00 in Houston) and you should buy it.

Just the other day, I told Kerry MacPhail, James’ wife and the “everything” behind both labels, that $75 was too low, that this wine would be a bargain at $125. She responded that, even though the wine might “deserve” it, they don’t like the idea of higher priced wines “just because”. I know $75 is not an everyday kind of price for just about anyone, but this is not an every day kind of Pinot.

Here is my tasting note from back in May. This wine needs a bit of time to open, but once it does? Hold on, it is amazing.

2024 MacPhail Pinot Noir Toulouse Vineyard, Anderson Valley, CA: Retail $75. Heavy Bottle (695g; 24.4oz). Under cork. A long time ago, I worked in a bike shop, and one of my co-workers there, one of the smartest people I have ever met, told me: “Every day, you are presented with numerous intelligence tests, choices you need to make from the mundane to the profound. Most people make the wrong choice most of the time. Don’t be like most people.” That has stuck with me, and I often reflect on my quotidien choices and wonder whether I am “like most people”? The short answer is probably “yes” but there are times that I nail the choice, stick the landing, so to speak. While most of the time those “bullseyes” are the result of dumb luck rather than superior insight, I will take the “win” whenever I can. 

Case in point. 

I opened this bottle of MacPhail last night, the first (I think) bottling after James MacPhail reacquired his eponymous label. Kerry MacPhail (the everything behind the label) assured me that I was one of the first to receive this wine (she didn’t even tell James), and well, I was honored. But there was also pressure; while I have the utmost faith in James as a winemaker, well, you never know. Last night, I popped it. And let it sit. And then I swirled, then I sipped. Then I let it sit some more. Repeat. Refill. Repeat. Um. Uh oh. While there was nothing wrong with the wine and it was, in fact, quite nice, it was simply lacking (any of) the oomph I associate with James’ wines. What the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks was I going to do? This wine was, well, just okay.

With the bottle now half-full (or empty depending on your worldview), I corked it and planned on revisiting the following day (i.e., today).

Well, I passed that little intelligence test, with flying colors.

Holy Mother of God. 

As soon as I started to pour it into the glass on this second day open, I got a whiff of that MacPhail power; black cherry. raspberry, touches of vanilla, hints of oak, violet, all leapt out of the dark magenta, but still translucent, elixir. Whoa. It happens every once in a while, maybe a couple of times a year, when a wine is so mesmerizing that I take an extended moment to keep inhaling deeply, transfixed so much by the aromas that I almost forget to taste.

But eventually I did. Holy cow. Rich is an understatement. Concentrated is too generic. This wine is both power and elegance, yin and yang, a polarity that works so incredibly well. The fruit is impressive, but then so is the acidity, both jockeying for dominance, but never in a macho, uncomfortable way. No, these competing elements get along beautifully.

I have spent some time with James, and while I would never claim to “know him”, I feel confident saying that he needed this first vintage of his return to his namesake winery to be more than special; it needed to leave no doubt that the winery, the name, the brand is “back”.

Mission accomplished. Holy cow.

Extraordinary. 98 Points.