Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2015 Brick & Mortar Cougar Rock Vineyard is a firm and well-built wine. TASTING NOTES: This wine exhibits excellent pure red fruit aromas and flavors. Pair it with grilled lamb chops. (Tasted: February 27, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
From an unlikely site atop Atlas Peak, this wine is lightly colored and delicate in nature. Gentle notions of forest, black tea, strawberry and boysenberry play against lithe silky tannins and quiet ripeness.
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.”
Just northeast of Napa city, Atlas Peak boasts some of Napa Valley’s highest elevation vineyards. Here the intense sunlight coupled with cool, nighttime temperatures produce grapes that are perfectly ripe, balanced and concentrated. The appellation is rich in volcanic soils and excels in the production of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.