Rack & Riddle Blanc de Noirs
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Wilfred
Wong -
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Enthusiast
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Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: I always have—and still do—consider Blanc de Noirs Sparklers to be wines that belong in the domain of California vintners and not in the Champagne group from France. I have seen some "real" Champagnes labeled Blanc de Noirs, and I have not been impressed. California has been this category's champion. The Rack & Riddle Blanc de Noirs is one of the marketplace's top wines. TASTING NOTES: This wine starts out with a dramatic copper color before settling into a bubbly of generous substance. Its aromas and flavors of dried strawberries, yeast autolysis, and tart citrus and beautiful and refined. Pair its bright finish with red tuna or fresh salmon sashimi. (Tasted: August 8, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine & Spirits
This fragrant sparkler starts as pinot noir pressed off its skins by Manveer Sandhu at this custom crush facility in Healdsburg. He gets most of the fruit from Carneros, offering a wine with broad flavors of Honeycrisp apples and cherry skins. Its bright acidity would find a comfortable place at the table with Korean barbecue.
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Wine Enthusiast
With a dry entry, this wine presents as rich in stone and tropical fruit on the midpalate, pleasing to fans of a fruitier style. Anise, strawberries and cream and Meyer lemon grip the finish.
Bringing together six winemakers on staff, including the sought-after skills of winemaker Penny Gadd-Coster, Rack & Riddle specializes in processes that take an incredible amount of labor, time and equipment, but that result in superior wine.
A term typically reserved for Champagne and Sparkling Wines, non-vintage or simply “NV” on a label indicates a blend of finished wines from different vintages (years of harvest). To make non-vintage Champagne, typically the current year’s harvest (in other words, the current vintage) forms the base of the blend. Finished wines from previous years, called “vins de reserve” are blended in at approximately 10-50% of the total volume in order to achieve the flavor, complexity, body and acidity for the desired house style. A tiny proportion of Champagnes are made from a single vintage.
There are also some very large production still wines that may not claim one particular vintage. This would be at the discretion of the winemaker’s goals for character of the final wine.
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.