Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A big, expressive, extracted style, with gutsy tannins and a strong, pleasing personality centered on vivid wild berry, raspberry, smoky oak and road tar notes. Most rewarding on the finish, where the flavors fold together. Drink now through 2024. 400 cases made.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Woodbridge’s Midas touch with Cabernet Sauvignon also extends to his Pinot Noirs. He makes three of them – two from the Sonoma Coast and one from the Southern Napa Valley site called Stanley Ranch that was often used by Berringer. The 2013s are all brilliantly packaged with a gorgeous picture of a cherry pie on the label. The 2013 Cherry Pie Pinot Noir Stanly Ranch is a hefty Pinot at 15+% natural alcohol, but exhibits delicious kirsch liqueur notes, roasted herbs, spice box and medium to full-bodied fleshy and succulent fruit and texture. It is a sexy, endearing style to drink over the next 5-7 years.
Cherry Pie is all about one thing: location. Single and multi-vineyard wines that have a distinct sense of place. From cool, well-draining sites at sea-level to wind-blown, elevated vineyards on steep slopes, each cluster begins with the influence of its surroundings. Vineyards for Cherry Pie are chosen as if they are buying a home–carefully selecting a place to live, to set down roots, to embrace the culture of the neighborhood. A place that will leave a distinct imprint from harvest to bottle.
The Cherry Pie founder was inspired by his grandmother’s baking and the artwork of TR Colletta, Cherry Pie is at once a rich and layered, redolent of the flavors and aromas of something delicious and beautiful, being made with care. The painting by artist TR Colletta of a juicy, mouthwatering hot-out-of-the-oven cherry pie was the perfect visual to pair with Cherry Pie wines. If you look closely, in the very middle of the pie you will see an image of a woman dancing with joy--which expresses their love for Pinot Noir.
As early as the 1970s Carneros became known as a source of terrific Pinot Noir, and was one of the first California regions to gain such a reputation. The combination of sunny days, cooling fog and thin clay soils are tailor-made for the variety. Another factor in Pinot Noir’s prominent place here is vintners’ willingness to experiment widely. The history of the grape in Carneros is marked by continuous research into clonal variations, viticultural techniques and site selection. Careful evaluation over time has revealed a signature flavor profile as well. Complex aromas and flavors of cherry, red berry, spice, earth and cola appear time and again in Carneros Pinot Noir. To this day the appellation remains one of California’s standard bearers for the variety.