Why We Took on the Pinnacle Ridge Wines

(I tried for a long time to come up with a less crass-sounding title for this post, but in the end I've reverted back to who I am.  Simple and pretty direct.)

Pinnacle Ridge Winery was founded by Brad Knapp back in the 1990s (exactly when I don't know.)  I remember first meeting Brad in 2000 at the Split Rock Wine festival in the Poconos.  I was working at Mount Nittany Winery and had just (literally three weeks earlier) become a father for the first time.  (I was running on about four hours sleep.)  I still remember tasting his Veritas and Chambourcin and maybe something else, and even my rookie palate could tell he was doing something special.

Fast forward a couple years, and he and Joanne Levengood and I started tasting wines together.  This group would eventually go on to produce three vintages of Trio, but in the early days we were just tasting barrel samples together.  What made it work for us was the fact that we all wanted to make better wines, we all had thick skins and could handle criticism, and we all had something to contribute.  (Well, on that last one...maybe not me quite so much.  Maybe they were just humoring me letting me taste with them in the early days.)

Turns out, Brad is originally from Indiana (the state, not the town in PA) and went to Purdue. Strange coincidence, I also am from Indiana, and even stranger, we're from towns about 45 minutes apart (and about ten years as well.)  Maybe it was the Midwestern personalities jiving, or maybe it's the fact that he was a Ph.D chemist and I wasn't (but I was raised by a physicist and a biologist.)  But we became good friends over the years and I have always had an enormous respect for Brad's wines.  

Everyone knows about Brad's sparkling wines and how they have won medals and acclaim for years.  What I found most interesting about his winemaking skills was first and foremost his ability to insight the effects of the vineyard on the wines.  He made distinctions of cropload, training techniques and rootstocks on the quality of the resultant wines.  He worked hard to find a way to make really great Pinot Noir, the most heart-breakingest grape of them all.  His 2008 Pinot Noir still stands as a benchmark in my palate's archives.

Brad (left) and Carl (March 2021)

And then he made a switch.  Sometime around 2014 or so, he started focusing on aromatic whites.  Honing in on the phenolics (tannins) of the fruit processing, he was able to dissect the mouth-feel of these varieties and morph it in the cellar into something pleasing and enticing.  There is a seductive sweetness to his white wines from this period that--although dry--psychologically plays with your taste buds to make you think you are tasting dessert when it's still an appetizer.

 For a winemaker to be able to do sparklings, dry reds, aromatic whites and whatever else is more than admirable.  The East coast is full of winemakers with one or two of these skills, but not all three usually.  Brad was pretty unique in this.  You all who were his customers knew this.

So, I knew for a couple years that Brad was considering retirement.  When he asked me towards the end of 2020 if I was interested in purchasing the Pinnacle Ridge brand, I declined because we were trying to figure out what was best for Allegro and--more importantly--I didn't feel like I could/should fill Brad's shoes with regard to his wines.  Sure, I had been making wine for over 20 years, but Brad's wines are finesse wines.  I make big Bordeaux style reds with big tannins.  White wines with structure from skin contact and barrel-fermentation.  To try to take on Brad's style as well as my own didn't just seem daunting, but almost anathema to who I was as a winemaker.

But then I remembered I am pretty ADD.  I like new stuff, all the time, and different stuff, too.  And I like a challenge.  When Brad mentioned a second time to me that he was still selling the Pinnacle Ridge brand, I knew I had to say yes.  Partly for myself and how it would push and challenge me to be a better winemaker.  But also partly to be able to keep his legacy of winemaking alive in Pennsylvania.

As we start to re-establish the Pinnacle Ridge brand in the Philly area (Lansdale, specifically), I hope you get a chance to come out and taste the wines that we have been working on.  They'll never be quite the same as Brad's, but hopefully they'll have Brad's spirit and character in them.  For certain, they'll have the respect of Brad's wines, and hopefully they'll also take you someplace new.

Cheers,

Carl

Winemaker, Allegro Winery/Cadenza Vineyards/Pinnacle Ridge Winery