Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Another example of 2009 being approached with a feather touch. It spent 20 months in French oak, 30% new. It's perfumed, fresh and racy, with a pronounced salinity throughout the wine. The ethos of including around 40% whole clusters enhances the nose wonderfully here. There's a subtle, weightless lift to these Cobb wines, and it's particularly showcased in what I found to be the 'darling' of this lineup. Drinking Window 2019 - 2035
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2009 Pinot Noir Emmaline Ann Vineyard offers lifted scents of autumn leaves, pencil shavings, oolong tea and dried red and black berries. Medium-bodied, the palate is concentrated, broody and fully mature while retaining bright blackberry flavors. It is firm, very fresh and finishes with great uplift and length. It’s drinking beautifully now but has the flesh and structure to hold another few years in bottle.
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.