Winemaker Notes
Far Coast Vineyard consistently produces one of our boldest Pinot Noir offerings. This wine offers notes of intense cherry cola, blackberry and cocoa aromas. The subtle earth and underbrush characters carry into the flavors along with Asian spice and a broad, lush texture followed by black cherry and blackberry fruits. The persistent finish is distinctly Far Coast.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard comes from a site not far from the Pacific Ocean, in the Sonoma Coast AVA, and it's one of the bigger, richer wines in the lineup in 2018. Deeper ruby-hued, with a stunning nose of ripe mulberries, Bing cherries, candied strawberries, spring flowers, and orange blossom, this is a spicy, medium to full-bodied, impressively concentrated Pinot Noir. Despite being from a cooler vineyard, it brings plenty of richness and sexy fruit, with a certain exotic character. I've always loved this cuvée (although I've always thought the Chardonnay was slightly more successful), but this might be the finest vintage I've tasted to date. Count me impressed. It's going to have 10-15 years of prime drinking. It's one of the finest Pinot Noirs in this report.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard was aged for 16 months in French oak barrels, 39% new. A little closed to begin, with coaxing it reveals notes of warm black cherries, black raspberries and kirsch plus touches of mossy tree bark, cumin seed and fragrant soil. Medium to full-bodied, the palate offers an impactful expression of red and black berry layers with loads of savory accents and a solid frame of fine-grained tannins, finishing long and earthy. Rating: 95+
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Wine Enthusiast
From a high elevation site on a mountain ridge north of Fort Ross, this blustery, full-bodied red shows the extremes of its growing conditions, offering broad, bright and fruity intensity. Juicy black cherry, plum and blackberry fruit meet graphite, dark chocolate and crushed rock, a note of sea spray and forest never far behind.
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.