Winemaker Notes
A riot of red fruits and baked pie. Cranberry, cherries, dark plum and ripe rhubarb combine with cedarbox, wild fennel and spice. Savory notes of sage a wild herbs. Ripe bing cherry and baked blackberry pie fill the palate. Intense and pretty at the same time. Sweet oak and baking spice play a supporting role to the fruit. Explosive with mouthwatering acidity. Youthful and grippy tannins saturate the palate to give immense length and a captivating dry finish. Hard to forget.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The larger production cuvee (1,748 cases) is the 2013 Pinot Noir Treehouse Vineyard, which comes from a higher elevation site that's above the fog line, roughly eight miles from the Pacific Ocean. Its deep ruby color is followed by to-die-for notes of black raspberries, crushed violets, cassis, spice and toasted bread. Utterly perfect on the palate, with medium to full-bodied richness, an ethereal, seamless, multi-dimensional texture, fine tannin and crazy length, hats off to the team at CIRQ for this singular beauty. Give bottles a few years (if you can resist) and enjoy over the following decade or more.
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Wine Spectator
Combining power and finesse, this is rich and extracted, with a supple yet gutsy core of mineral-laced tannins that weave into a mix of gravelly, loamy earth, juicy blackberry and wild berry. Drink now through 2022.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.