Winemaker Notes
Brilliant aromas of Bing cherry, pomegranate, blood orange, pink grapefruit, thyme and rose abound. The palate echoes the red fruited nose with the addition of cranberry, wild strawberry, red currant, orange peel, cherry tobacco, forest floor and wet stone. Texturally elegant and lifted, the bright fruit and integrated tannin lingers on through a long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This spicy, toasty and powerful wine offers cinnamon and toast aromas followed by concentrated red- and black- cherry flavors wrapped in medium tannins. Handsome and well oaked, it gives a grippy texture. Hanzell's 70-year track record suggests this classic will improve with aging and drink best from 2027-2037. — Jim Gordon
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Wine Spectator
A stylish, mineral-driven version, with a swirl of red tea, savory and sous-bois notes leading off, before a core of damson plum and blood orange opens up. The long, earth- and chalk-tinged finish flows through with nice cut. Understated and lovely.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Perhaps the most historically significant appellation in Sonoma County, the Sonoma Valley is home to both Buena Vista winery, California's oldest commercial winery, and Gundlach Bundschu winery, California's oldest family-run winery.
It is also one of the more geologically and climactically diverse districts. The valley includes and overlaps four distinct Sonoma County sub-appellations, including Carneros, Moon Mountain District, Sonoma Mountain and Bennett Valley. With mountains, benchlands, plains, abundant sunshine and the cooling effects of the nearby Pacific, this appellation can successfully produce a wide range of grape varieties. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gewürztraminer, and most notably, Zinfandel all thrive here. Ancient Zinfandel vines over 100 years old produce small crops of concentrated, spicy fruit, which in turn make some of the Valley's most unique wines. These can also be made as “field blends” (wines made from a mix of grape varieties grown in the same vineyard) along with Petite Sirah, Carignan and Alicante Bouschet.