Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A beautiful Pinot that perfectly captures the cool coastal California interpretation of the variety's essence. The texture is light and airy, like drinking a cloud. But the flavors are powerful and complex, stunning the palate with the most intense flavors of cherries, raspberries, root beer, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon and smoky oak. Hard to imagine anyone not falling in love with this lilting Pinot Noir.
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Wine Spectator
The most complex and complete of the 2006 Freemans, this is fragrant, with wilted rose petal, blackberry and wild berry and hints of loamy earth. Both supple and firm on the finish.
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.