Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very transparent and fresh aromas of sliced strawberries, lemons and pomegranate. Medium to full body with firm, linear tannins that run through the wine, giving it energy and form. It’s really long. I like the earth, lightly smoked meat and fruit at the end. Always sophisticated and fine.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir West Ridge is perfumed with fresh forest herbs, cedar, and strawberry leather. There is a bit more concentration on the palate, with cherry, dried roses, and stony minerality. As with the other wines here, there is incredible weightlessness without sacrificing complexity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Noir West Ridge has a medium ruby-purple color and scents of raspberries, orange peel, forest floor, aniseed and Angostura bitters. The medium-bodied palate offers surprising concentration and power with loads of grainy tannins and bursts of refreshing acidity. Its deep core of fruit and long finish that's adorned with detailed botanical accents. The West Ridge comes from Mt. Eden selection vines planted in 1989.
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Wine Enthusiast
Cassis and Kir come to the fore of this focused and crisp red wine, which buzzes in tension and verve-like energy. Supple and sleek on the palate, it is complex in saline, rock and forest undertones, lithe and lingering on the mind and the soul.
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.