Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Reserve brings together the finest barrels from the vintage to create a wine of concentrated red fruit complimented by savory, earthy aromatics and notable minerality. Classic Hirsch tannins provide backbone and gravitas. A highly ageable wine worthy of contemplation and patience. We recommend cellaring this wine for a few years before drinking.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Of the many great Hirsch estate pinot noirs bottled over the past two decades, this is way up there, capturing the dynamism of these ridges at the edge of a con- tinent. The fruit’s energy mirrors the crash and undertow of the Pacific a few miles west. The fla-vors are bright and spicy, delicately sun-warmed, building into the mineral power of the tannins. It will benefit from a decade or more in the cellar.
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James Suckling
This shows wonderful complexity and subtlety with dried cherries, mushrooms, bark and forest floor on the nose. Full-bodied, yet so precise and tailored with beautiful fruit. Fine and fresh on the finish, which goes on and on. Pretty acidity, too. Drinkable now, but this will deliver something wonderful in two or three years. Try after 2022.
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.