Winemaker Notes
#2 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2020
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Aubert Pinot Noirs were bottled at the beginning of July 2019. Medium to deep ruby-purple colored, the 2018 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard rolls out of the glass with intense notes of Morello cherries, rhubarb, raspberry pie, bouquet garni and lilacs with suggestions of Marmite toast, fungi, fragrant soil and forest floor. Full-bodied, the palate is packed with crunchy red berries plus loads of earthy accents, framed by firm, grainy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long with a wonderfully spicy kick. Delicious now, this should age incredibly well, generously rewarding those with enough patience to defer their gratification.
-
Wine Spectator
Mark Aubert is a skilled master of Pinot Noir from Sonoma County. His winemaking is a mix of French and Californian styles, including whole-cluster fermentation with native yeasts and long macerations on the skins. Aubert’s goal with Pinot is to make wines with mouthfilling flavors and a low amount of tannins. The grapes for this wine came from the clay- and sand-rich soils of UV Vineyard, located in western Sonoma County near the town of Sebastopol. The site is named after the late Ulises Valdez, the talented Mexican-American grapegrower who planted it in 2001.
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.