Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: What do I think about celebrity wines? Well, one never knows what one is going to get. Quite often the wines are boring, uneventful, and merely commercial. But Les Claypool is not your average famous person: His venture into the wine world is seriously good. TASTING NOTES: The 2013 Claypool Cellars Pachyderm Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir is upright and pure. The wine exhibits crystal clear, bright red fruit and lively mineral aromas and flavors. Its rich palate feel shows layers before finishing with an added bite. Pair it with rosemary and garlic infused rotisserie leg of lamb. (Tasted: March 19, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
The Sonoma Coast AVA is large in area but, not counting overlapping regions like Russian River Valley, only has a few thousand acres of grapevines—and it’s no wonder. Much of the region is rugged and not easily accessible. Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean’s fog and cool breezes limits the varieties that can be cultivated, but it proves to be an ideal environment for high quality Pinot Noir.
Since fog is a frequent fact of life here, as are heavy marine layers that sometimes bring rain, the best vineyards are wisely planted above the fog line, on picturesque ridges that capture enough sun to provide even ripening. That, with the overnight drop in temperature that reliably preserves acidity, results in fine expressions of Pinot Noir that often receive tremendous critic and consumer praise alike, and are often in high demand.