Winemaker Notes
This is the kind of guest you love inviting back to your table, because it compliments absolutely everything. Dark Horse Pinot Noir makes a champion out of weeknight meals, and is so easy-going it gets along famously with more exotic fare like lamb curry and spicy stews.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
This Pinot is co-crushed with Gewürztraminer in the fermenter. The freshly aromatic nose exudes earth, pepper, and tobacco leaf, which are echoed on the palate. High-toned notes of cranberry and cherry stay true to the variety as complexity and delicacy bring out a lovely combination of rose and violet. Interestingly, even the 375-mL canned version mirrors its personality.
Internationally recognized for gorgeous, pure fruit combined with great elegance, California Pinot noir thrives among the state’s cooler, coastal zones. Characterized by eclectic flavors and aromas of strawberry, black cherry, plum and potpourri with notes of forest floor, mushroom or black tea, the best California Pinot noir boast a supple texture and good acidity, giving them the ability to improve with age.
Credited with the beginning of Pinot noir’s glory in California, two growers, Joe Rochioli and Joseph Swan in the late 1960s independently planted Pinot noir vineyards in the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County. Today Sonoma County remains the leading producer of Pinot noir in the state, and Pinot noir is the leading red grape in the county, achieving its highest potential, in the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast.
Other coastal appellations where Pinot noir flourishes include Carneros, Anderson Valley and most of the Central Coast.