Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast offers slightly more red fruits, bay leaf, and spice as well as a distinct salty minerality in its aromas and flavors. Silky, polished and elegant, with vibrant acidity, it's a harmonious, balanced, classic Pinot Noir that has rock-solid depth and richness.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple colored, the 2015 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast has a pretty nose of wilted roses, potpourri and garrigue with a core of kirsch, warm raspberries and cinnamon stick. Medium to full-bodied with plush tannins, soft acid and generous red fruit flavors, it finishes long and perfumed.
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.