Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast reveals a dark, healthy plum/ruby color, and beautifully textured notes of forest floor, autumnal vegetation, plum sauce, black cherries and spice. It is an attractive, sexy, round, well-endowed Pinot to drink over the next 5-6 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is rich and ripe, oozing with black cherry, boysenberry and strawberry jam aromas and flavors. It feels full and rather soft on the palate, as the acidity and tannins appear very mild.
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.