Winemaker Notes
The aromatics literally leap out the glass and fill your olfactory passages with a complex melange of wild berry, black cherry and pomegranate fruits, crushed flowers and granite. One has to spend a bit of time with it in the attempt to unwind these aromatics. On the palate, the wine is silky with beautiful body and intense, tightly wound fruit which is supported by vibrant acidity and a long finish that allows it to unfold gracefully. The fruit echoes the nose with pomegranate, black cherry and wild berry with hints of baking spice on the finish. A decant is strongly recommended on this wine in the short term and we expect it to handsomely reward extended cellar aging (who knows, maybe 20 years would be a beautiful thing for this wine).
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Coastview Vineyard Pinot Noir is one of the more delicate wines, with pretty red fruits, smoked earth, spring flowers, and spice aromas and flavors. Like all of Bradley's wines, it has juicy acidity and terrific purity, is medium-bodied, elegant and lively. It also has a vibrant, poised style that's going to age beautifully. It's one of my favorites in the lineup but needs 3-4 years of bottle age. This saw 88% whole clusters and spent 18 months in 42% new French oak.
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Big Basin Coastview Vineyard Pinot Noir is one of the best Monterey efforts I have tasted in a long time. TASTING NOTES: This wine shows power without taking over the palate. Its precise aromas and flavors of bright red fruit should pair beautifully with a grilled Loch Duart Salmon fillet. (Tasted: April 23, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
-
Wine Enthusiast
Grown at about 2,200 feet above the Salinas Valley with views of the Monterey Bay, this bottling, which saw 88% whole-cluster fermentation, shows crushed hibiscus, spicy cinnamon, anise and red plum on the pungent nose. Crisp pomegranate and raspberry flavors meet with sumac and aromatic mints on the palate.
-
Wine & Spirits
From a vineyard not far from Pinnacles National Park, this reflects the site’s coolness with its savor. It leads with scents of smoke and peat, the red-fruit flavors tart and crunchy, with a candied-ginger edge. Age, then serve with grilled octopus.
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.”
A geographic and climatic paradise for grape vines, Monterey is a part of the greater Central Coast AVA and contains within it five smaller sub-appellations, including Arroyo Seco, San Lucas, San Bernabe, Hames Valley and the famous Santa Lucia Highlands. The climate is relatively warm but tempered by cool, coastal winds, allowing the regions in Monterey County an exceptionally long growing season. Bud break often happens two weeks sooner and harvest tends to be two weeks later compared to other surrounding regions.
Monterey’s coastal side, where the cooling ocean fog allows grapes to develop a perfect sugar-acid balance, excels in the production of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling. Warmer, inland subzones are home to fleshy, concentrated and full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel.
Chardonnay, covering about 40% of vineyard acreage, is the most widely planted grape in all of Monterey County.