Winemaker Notes
The wine is translucent. A prologue indicating that what follows is a wine of elegance, lift and grace not heavy, flabby, richness. The texture on the palate is smooth with medium weight. The red fruit flavors mix with mineral and forest floor aromas that linger on a salivating finish with bright acidity that is present but not aggressive.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Scallop Shelf is an estate cuvée assembled by winemaker Vanessa Wong. The driver for the wine is the Pommard clone selection (typically 60%). The 2022 vintage is lushly fruited blue and red fruits and clove spice. 2022 was an excellent vintage pushed by a severe heat spike in September around Labor Day. The Scallop Shelf was picked at the front end of the heat spike and Andy Peay feels there is a fullness of fruit expression. This wine shows a touch more heft, but the acids didn't drop, allowing the wine to retain an elegant florality. Smoky spice aromas lift red and blue fruits. The palate's fleshy cherry fruits don't mute the wine's elegance or linearity as blood orange zest and Chinese five spice lift the fruit into ethereal heights of savoury spice.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A medium ruby red hue, the 2022 Pinot Noir Scallop Shelf is fantastic and layered with notes of violets, crushed stones, black raspberries, wild herbs, and a hint of pepper spice. Medium-bodied, it offers a long, incredible texture all the way through, with a velvety sea foam feel and a clean finish. Drink over the next 15 or so years.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Estate Scallop Shelf is a gorgeous, wonderfully translucent wine. Bright aromatics, lively acids and vibrant saline notes give the Scallop Shelf its distinctive personality. Crushed red cherry fruit, mint, orange peel, white pepper and chalk all race across the palate. This energetic Pinot is impeccably done. It’s a first-class wine from Peay.
The Sonoma Coast AVA is large in area but, not counting overlapping regions like Russian River Valley, only has a few thousand acres of grapevines—and it’s no wonder. Much of the region is rugged and not easily accessible. Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean’s fog and cool breezes limits the varieties that can be cultivated, but it proves to be an ideal environment for high quality Pinot Noir.
Since fog is a frequent fact of life here, as are heavy marine layers that sometimes bring rain, the best vineyards are wisely planted above the fog line, on picturesque ridges that capture enough sun to provide even ripening. That, with the overnight drop in temperature that reliably preserves acidity, results in fine expressions of Pinot Noir that often receive tremendous critic and consumer praise alike, and are often in high demand.