Winemaker Notes
Dark and red-toned fruit, blood orange and cedar notes too. Stylish and drop dead delicious.
This has tomahawk ribeye for days written all over it – also eager pairing with grilled quail, game hen, or good ol’fashioned yard bird with cherry / wine reduction (pro tip, don’t add the wine, drink it while you wait for sauce to reduce).
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A brooding character is the throughline in the Failla house style, and the Occidental Ridge Pinot Noir shows dark, smoky aromas of frankincense, singed violets and earthen elements of sous bois, rose hips and salty sea air. The palate is textured and spiced with spicy blood orange, smoky soy, hoisin sauces, black tea, and an intense minerality that lifts the finish.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Occidental Ridge Vineyard is another magical wine from this site. Deep, pliant and resonant to the core, the 2022 is immediately alluring. Succulent dark red cherry, plum, spice, coffee, licorice, lavender and menthol fill out the layers effortlessly. The Occidental Ridge is, quite simply, a drop-dead gorgeous beauty.
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Wine Enthusiast
This intense Pinot brings on the sultry aromas, with baked cherry, toasted nori, black tea and grilled mushroom notes on the complex and evolving nose. The palate is equally vivacious, with the plush tannins balancing nervy acidity and flavors of crushed blackberry, cola and cedar. Give this a few years in the cellar and it will dance beautifully with anything mushroom or truffle-scented.
Editors' Choice
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.