Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
This comes from a newer section of Coastlands, planted in 1998 on steeper, rockier ground than the Old Firs and Diane Cobb blocks recommended above. Right now, if you taste this without decanting it, you won’t get much beyond reduction and terse tannins. With time the fruit emerges into a cool and zesty line of flavor, like raspberries growing in the shade, the initial bitterness transforming into leafy complexity and peppery spice that gives the quiet fruit an appetizing crispness in the end. It’s a pure, coastal pinot noir with lots of energy.
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James Suckling
The 2012 Pinot Noir Coastlands Vineyard 1906 Block has a pale garnet color and pretty notes of old leather, mushrooms, woodsmoke and tobacco leaves. The medium-bodied palate surprises with iron-laced, sweet blackberry fruits in a soft, seamless frame, and it finishes long and ethereal. It's a lovely mature Pinot Noir.
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.