Winemaker Notes
A complex and alluring wine with aromas of black cherry, orange blossom licorice, peppermint and Asian spices. With firm, mouth-filling tannins and bright acidity, this wine has the structure for a long life.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
ld Firs is one of the two original vineyard blocks that Ross Cobb’s parents—David and Diane—planted in 1989. The soil here is rich, deep clay loam, which allows the vines to be dry farmed. Still, it’s a cool site, and yields are quite low. This 2012 is closed at first, but with air it becomes translucent, then transparent: refreshing scents of juniper and rosemary, red fruit mingled with earth, the appetizing zestiness of blood oranges. The overall impression is one of cool instensity, the wine’s flavors tied as if by invisible strings to precise, stony tannins. The structure is analogous to the coiled reserve of a young grand cru Burgundy, yet supremely coastal—a brilliant wine that couldn’t come from anywhere else.
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.