OK, I admit, I am prejudiced.

I generally don’t like California Pinot Noir. This is not a blind, irrational prejudice in the nasty way the word has come to be used in these politically correct times, but a prejudice based on long experience of tasting hundreds of examples of this magical if difficult varietal.

Then every now and again, along comes a wine, a California pinot noir, that is so good it upsets this comfortable certainty and causes me to re-evaluate the whole picture.

The trouble is California is generally too warm to grow what I consider great pinot, but there are cooler spots where conscientious winemakers work hard to produce more restrained wine, wine with less jammy over-ripe fruit, wine that retains the acidity and tannins necessary for longer aging.

And one of these is this week’s Nick’s Wine of the Week, the Sea Smoke Cellars Botella Pinot Noir 2006 ($40). It’s own particular cool spot is high on the Santa Rita Hills overlooking the Santa Ynez River Canyon. Uniquely in North America, this series of ridges and valleys in Santa Barbara County run east-west, so the canyon acts as a funnel, drawing in cool ocean air from the Pacific.

The Fog Rolls In

In fact the name Sea Smoke refers to the sea fogs that frequently roll up the canyon, and it is this particular microclimate that results in one of California’s best pinots.

At the moment it’s bright with the flavors of ripe, tart blackberries and cherries but it lasted three days in my refrigerator after opening, getting better and better each day, and remarkably still tasting of summer raspberries at the end. When a wine does this I’m sure I’m on to a winner, a wine that  will not only last, but go on improving.

I just know that in a few years all those wonderful old red wine flavors like cigar box cedar, wet leather and damp fall leaves will emerge to wonderful effect.

If they don’t, I’m turning in my wine drinker’s license.