Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
This skillfully produced and wonderfully proportioned wine possesses compelling purity and vibrancy, putting its expressive fruit character and strong sense of place on full display. Strawberry, cherry, and cranberry meld with delicate star anise and dried mushroom.
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James Suckling
Red plums, strawberries, cardamom and seaweed on the nose, with clove and smoke undertones. It’s medium- to full-bodied, spicy and flavorful. Silky tannins.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Based on fruit from two sites in Sonoma and aged in 100% French oak (30% new), the 2022 Pinot Noir offers juicy Bing cherries, raspberries, leafy underbrush, and spice, as well as some savory floral notes. It's medium-bodied, very pretty, balanced, and elegant, with soft tannins and outstanding length.
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Decanter
Pretty, open nose of red berry, polished palate of dark plum, Morello cherry sweet spice.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.