Winemaker Notes
Notes of ripe plum, black cherry, raspberry, cedar, baking spice.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
This juicy and delightful Pinot Noir from the Cakebread family offers a savory start of Mediterranean herbs. dark plum, sandalwood, and black tea. Dusty notes of cocoa and cherry unfold on the long finish.
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James Suckling
Fresh aromas of dried strawberries, wild raspberries, dried herbs and wet bark. The palate is light-bodied with crunchy tannins and bright acidity, giving flavors of cranberries, rhubarb and spices. Well balanced and fresh.
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Wine Enthusiast
This Cakebread project is producing solid wines at fair prices. Vibrant aromas of dark maraschino cherry play against earthy compost and loam elements on the engaging nose of this bottling. The palate is firmly texture, framing baked berry and mashed plum flavors alongside that persistently savory earth tone.
Editors' Choice
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.”
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.