Winemaker Notes
The wine is dynamic, alive and precise. It begins in a coastal style--sleek, focused and linear. The deep entry expands along strong lines with good drive and detail to its red and black fruit flavors. As it fully opens, natural Russian River textures and volume takes hold – broad, supple and layered. Savory elements steer the wine toward complexity that will continue to build in bottle.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Made from four stellar sites within the appellation, this stunning wine shows rich red and blue fruit. Spice and forest floor tones intertwine alongside firm, supple tannins and balanced acidity, finishing with impressive length and intensity.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
DuMol’s highest volume Pinot Noir is a fairly deep, balanced, firm yet accessible, effort made from a blending of four vineyards. It might have turned out to be just another generalized blend, but that is not the case here. Rather, the wine has both the focus and the depth that one expects from the better Russian River Valley bottlings. It does suggest that it might drink a bit sooner than DuMOL’s single vineyard bottlings, yet it has the structure and the solid fruit to ask that a half decade and more of patient cellaring be considered.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Incredibly aromatic and complex, the 2017 Pinot Noir Wester Reach offers loads of spiced red fruits, incense, wood smoke, and forest floor notes as well as a medium-bodied, fresh, focused, yet still pleasure bent style. It's a classic DuMol Pinot Noir to drink over the coming 5-7 years. This cuvée comes all from the Russian River Valley, from multiple clones, and spent a year in 40% new French oak.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir Wester Reach is pale to medium ruby with cranberry, crushed black cherry, woodsmoke, oolong tea leaves and pipe tobacco on the nose with notes of earth, strawberry and cola. The light to medium-bodied palate offers a great interplay of spicy fruits and earthy character, with seamlessly woven grainy tannins and juicy acidity, finishing long and spicy with loads of energy. Give this another year or two in bottle.
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Wine Spectator
Plush and well-spiced, with a vibrant, juicy core of dark cherry, plum and raspberry flavors, supported by medium-grained tannins and firm acidity. Notes of slate and hints of white pepper show on the structured finish. Drink now through 2024.
Respect for the land
DuMOL is a “vineyard up” winery with a fully integrated approach to winegrowing and winemaking. DuMOL planted its high-density estate vineyards and has farmed many of California’s most renowned vineyards for more than two decades.
Commitment to craft
DuMOL sticks to what works and is focused on the fundamentals, finding inspiration in master, visionary producers around the world as DuMOL continually hones its craft—never imitating, ever refining.
Connected on a personal level
This is a project that comes from who the DuMOL team is and what they love. A deep connection is paramount: to the land, the wines, and the customers.
Heritage and experience
Founded in 1996, DuMOL is a latter-day pioneer in the Russian River Valley. Winemaker, Viticulturist and Partner, Andy Smith, farmed the region for nearly a decade before joining in 1999, and Associate Winemakers Julie Cooper and Jenna Davis, and Cellar Master Jaime Eufracio, have over 40 years combined experience at DuMOL.
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.