Winemaker Notes
Soaring aromatic complexity: dark berry fruits, hibiscus, minerals and herbal/floral notes. The wine is youthful but quite approachable with flavors akin to blackberry, cassis and classic black cherry. The palate expands into richness and texture supported by supple tannin and vibrant acidity. With air the wine turns to red fruits and herbal/woodsy characters and the wine’s drawn-out length takes hold.
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Deep but transparent ruby, the 2021 Pinot Noir DuMOL Estate Vineyard is brooding with pine, pure black cherry, and licorice aromas. Medium to full-bodied, it offers bright acidity, ripe warming spice, and pure fruit, with notes of clove and mossy earth floating underneath. Drink 2025-2045.
-
Vinous
The 2021 Pinot Noir DuMol Estate Vineyard is another magnificent wine in this range. Dark and explosive, the 2021 is packed with black cherry, plum, chocolate, licorice, new leather and spice. There's real density, but it is the wine's explosive energy I admire most. Magnificent.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir Estate Vineyard comes from Swan and Calera selection vines planted in 2004, and it is exceptionally expressive and energetic this vintage. It gains aromatic intensity as it airs in the glass, blossoming from red cherry and Italian plum to allspice, Campari, licorice and hibiscus. The medium-bodied palate is chalky and refreshing, its power derived from highly concentrated fruit, and it boasts a flourish of ultra spicy accents across the long finish.
-
Tasting Panel
A perfume of violets and blueberry leads to a polished mouthfeel with black tea softened by blue fruit compote. Deliriously luscious yet graceful, with fennel and coffee enhancing plum pudding.
-
James Suckling
A full-bodied pinot noir with lots of fruit and density. It’s chewy and tannic but there’s a hand-crafted polish, too. Muscular and flexed. Ripe strawberry and crushed stone with a decadence and hints of chocolate. Flavorful finish.
-
Wine Spectator
Offers delicious mulberry and maraschino cherry fruit flavors laced with hints of mulling spices, black tea and singed apple wood, while keeping a fresh and focused feel through the finish.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.