"Belle Glos is our way of showcasing, under one label, the distinctive Pinot Noirs we produce in the few top growing areas in California. My family made Pinot Noir from Napa Valley grapes from 1972 until 1990. I feel that those were good wines - when I taste them even now, they are good - but they were not what we were looking for in Pinot Noir. That is how our search began for locations that could produce the wine we were seeking.
 I had my introduction to this adventure when I was in middle school and, with the help of several vineyard workers, developed the small Taylor Lane Vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, clearing the trees and rocks from this previously unplanted land, and laying out and planting the vine rows. From the 2002 vintage, eight years later, I had the pleasure of making the first vineyard-designated wines from this vineyard and from another site we farm, Clark & Telephone Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley. We also produced a multi-vineyard blend from the Sonoma Coast. Recently, we introduced another single-vineyard bottling, from our Las Alturas Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands. These three growing areas demonstrate the range of styles possible with this subtle, elegant grape. At first glance, these locations seem similar because they can all be described as coastal. But within this definition the differences are significant, depending on the amount of fog, wind and sunlight at a specific site and, something we have found to be very important, the diurnal temperature variation during the growing season.
 The wines demonstrate the vastly different flavors produced in the environments in which they are grown. Even if we were to start with the same soil types, rootstock and clone, we could produce different wines from these sites. We appreciate those differences and, in fact, try to accentuate them with the other choices we make in viticultural practices and winemaking."

Joseph Wagner, winemaker