Did someone say (Pinot) party? As the most food-friendly of wines, Pinot Noir is always a safe bet for the holiday feast circuit. Medium-bodied, light and fresh on the palate, this Pinot stays true to its varietal characteristics but has plenty of red fruit, dark berry, and savory flavors to demonstrate the Santa Maria Valley vineyards from which it’s made. Pair this pretty Pinot with your turkey, roasted pork, and sides.

We loved this richly textured wine with extracted cherry and cranberry fruit flavors and hints of mushrooms and spice. Dark in color, it hints of blueberries on the nose. We bet you can’t stop at one glass. Great value.

Cambria Winery is located on the Santa Maria bench in California’s Santa Barbara County. This cool coastal growing area is excellent for the production of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. This Benchbreak Pinot Noir is a combination of different clones and vine ages, yielding a rich, dark wine with ripe berry and earthy mineral flavors – a great complement to salmon from the grill.

Cambria is one of the early wineries in the Jackson Family Wines portfolio and has always been a popular producer of chardonnay and pinot noir from Santa Barbara County’s Santa Maria Valley. The 2013 Benchbreak Pinot Noir seems to have stepped up a notch in quality and packaging with a new label. The wine shows dark fruit flavors and silky texture without the overripe heaviness that sometimes characterizes Santa Maria Valley pinot.

Dark fruit shows on the nose with root beer, cola, tree bark and a hint of mushroom. It immediately suggests that it will be incredibly savory. Dark plum, raspberry and cherry are the fruit forward flavors buffered by the forest floor and mushroom aspects, which are not extreme but just enough to tip the scales in favor of the savory side. Dark and deep, it's the purgatory of pinot noir - you don't have to suffer much and the rewards are great.

Reasonably priced, this pinot noir from the Santa Maria Valley has interesting earth notes that remind us of Burgundy. Big cherry flavors with a dash of currant and spice.

The wine showed a light-medium ruby color. Cherry, cranberry, rhubarb, loamy earth, oak and whiffs of strawberry each arrived on the nose where the strawberry dissipated as the wine opened up. Cherry, cranberry, rhubarb, raspberry, loamy earth and oak followed on the palate. The wine exhibited good structure and length, along with well-integrated tannins. This wine would pair well with risotto with wild mushrooms.

A supple, intensely flavored Pinot Noir with fine character (cherry, red currant, kola nut, plum, rosehips, black tea, nutmeg), light oakiness, good balance, and a long, lightly tannic finish. Warrants modest aging. 5 stars, exceptional.

Wine of the Week California wines don't feature here as often as I would like, or as often as perhaps they should. There are any number of wines I'd like to recommend, but the problem is usually price – expensive compared to wines from elsewhere. But that's just the way it is: land is expensive, there's a ready domestic market, etcetera. That said, the price of this single-vineyard Pinot Noir from the cool, coastal Santa Maria Valley seems eminently fair. With a few years under its belt, it still has sea-breeze freshness and sweetly fragrant cranberry, cherry and spice flavours, but there are now delicately mature, savoury, nutty, Earl Grey tea notes adding complexity. For those who want a world context: yes, it has Burgundian style, As for serving, it has good structure, so it's a wine for food, but I wouldn't overwhelm it with strong spices, heavily reduced sauces or sharp dressings, Herbs such as rosemary and thyme work well, and mature Pinot loves mushrooms, especially morels.

One aspect often overlooked by many people is how long it truly takes for a specific wine to be created. I’m not talking about aging or vine maturation but rather the formation of a soil composition which ultimately impacts the terroir evident in a wine. is keenly aware of what lies beneath their vines. Fossilized seashells, shale, limestone, and sand all make up the bench on which the vineyard sits. This idyllic location overlooks the Santa Maria Valley and the Sisquoc River. Within these plots, several Pinot Noir clones are sustainably grown for use in Cambria’s Benchbreak wine. The Benchbreak Pinot Noir showcases bright red fruit upfront with raspberry, cranberry, and rhubarb. These are accented by earth tones, orange rind and a light herbal quality. Raspberry is joined by pomegranate on the palate followed by a fine minerality and touches of oak.

The Santa Maria Valley in California’s Santa Barbara County is home to Cambria Estate Winery and Julia’s Vineyard. The planting at the vineyard began in 1974 making it one of the oldest Pinot Noir vineyards in the area. Mature vines yield the finest fruit, and it shows in the structure and complexity of the wine. Black fruits and earthy mineral lead the way with berry, violet and toasty oak notes filling in the finish. A nice acid balance makes for perfect pairing with our grilled salmon.

American Dream The cool climate of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Maria Valley ensures that this beautifully crafted Pinot Noir is awash with lots of red fruit — rich cherry and raspberry with notes of vanilla and spice. Perfect for a special occasion.

Coincidentally, Cambria had, in the past, released Bench Break Vineyard iterations of both chardonnay and pinot noir. I pulled this 2011 bottling from my cellar to see how well Cambria wines age. The short answer is very well. Black cherry, boysenberry, root beer and cola on the extremely expressive nose along with a spice regime of cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg. It has a soft and super silky mouth entry (aging in the bottle plays a big part) with black cherry and boysenberry again as well as candied violets, licorice, cedar and forest floor. While the fruit component is still very apparent, more of the latter savory flavors and spices (including brewed tea) are now seamlessly integrated into the mix. Delicious at 5 years old with no signs of fading anytime soon. Enjoy at will.

This has an intense but elegant black cherry nose and flavors with appealing spicy and vanilla notes. It's great by itself or with salmon, chicken, pork or cheeses. The wine is very drinkable and enjoyable.

Cambria uses five clones of pinot noir to create a round and fulfilling pinot noir with cherry notes, Asian spices and a hint of mushrooms.

Solid Santa Barbara County pinot noir does not come at any better price than this: from estate-grown fruit in Cambria's Julia's Vineyard on the Santa Maria Bench, just down the road from Bien Nacido Vineyard. This vintage shows the classic Santa Maria pinot nose of black plum, mulberry, root beer, cola, tree bark and forest floor. It's complicated on the palate as well with dark fruit, like black plum, mulberry and olallieberry, happily mixed in with strawberry and red raspberry. That's plenty of fruit for the barrel spices, like vanilla and cinnamon, to conveniently envelop and support. The dark fruit, as well as root beer, cola and forest floor, expand on mid palate and extend to the lengthy and luxurious finish.

To get a sense of why people fall in love with Pinot Noir, it's worth spending a little more money. The following wines, made by some of the top winemakers in the state, are all great examples of regional terroir—the distinctive character that comes from a specific soil type and climate. Plus, taken together, they essentially amount to a five-bottle master class in some of California's most significant Pinot Noir regions.

To get a sense of why people fall in love with Pinot Noir, it's worth spending a little more money. The following wines, made by some of the top winemakers in the state, are all great examples of regional terroir - the distinctive character that comes from a specific soil type and climate. Plus, taken together, they essentially amount to a five-bottle master class in some of California's most significant Pinot Noir regions.

Clean and subdued but never less than specific in its relatively pert, red-cherry fruit and showing a light touch of sweet oak in support, Cambria’s mild-mannered Pinot may be a bit smaller in scale, but it is a nicely balanced, well-defined, very user-friendly wine all the same, and it invites unceremonious drinking in the comparatively near-term.

You have to love this pinot noir purely for its generous, forward flavors. It's simply delicious -- but not subtle in the classic sense of Burgundy. At $25, it is one of the best pinot noir values on the market. Black cherries and strawberries dominate the flavor profile.

Moderately dark reddish-purple hue in the glass. A complex and alluring nose offers scents of black cherries, spice, wood shop, mushroom and sandalwood. Polished and very appealing with impeccable balance, offering flavors of fresh, spicy black cherries, with a hint of toasty oak in the background. Lavish, seductive and satiny, this is pure pleasure.

Medium reddish-purple color in the glass. Subdued, but likable aromas of dark cherries, berries and spice. An appealing rush of dark red fruits saturates the entry, expands in the mouth, and finishes extremely long and powerful. Hints of herbs and edible flowers add interest. Lithe, with supple tannins and appealing crispness. Very good.

Dark reddish-purple color in the glass. Very subdued aromas of black raspberries, aged wine cellar and oak. Rich, dense and deeply flavored with copious amounts of black raspberry and blackberry fruit and a riff of complimentary oak spice in the background. The lush fruit extract is somewhat buried in the structural tannins and the wine will need more time in the bottle to correct this. The finish is of special note with the dark fruited aromatics returning for several extended encores. This is a Cabernet drinker’s Pinot that is bit over the top for me, but is very well made in its style. Solid now, but may deserve more accolades in a few years. Good.