Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Pinot Noir Reserve checks in as a cellar selection of the best terroirs. It’s just ever so slightly deeper ruby-hued, yet it’s still translucent in color. Revealing a great nose of darker cherry, redcurrant, scorched earth, crushed rock, and assorted savory dried herbs, it hits the palate with medium to full-bodied richness and the classic, mineral-driven, structured, more acid and tannin-driven style that’s favored by this estate. Nicely balanced, with plenty of fruit, this is a wine you could drink today, but I think it’s going to pick up additional complexity with just 2-3 years of bottle age, and I have no doubt it will have 15+ years of overall longevity.
Rating: 95(+) -
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.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir Reserve has a pale ruby color and elegant expression this vintage, with pretty aromas of peppercorn, bay leaves, red berries and rose petal perfume. The medium-bodied palate is layered and spicy with a soft, juicy frame and long, delicately styled 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.