Winemaker Notes
By nose - rising dough, orange marmalade and baked apple. By mouth - ripe red apple, mandarin orange and hazelnut.
A perfect wine with poached eggs, smoked salmon and toast, salade Nicoise, hard cheeses, classic roast chicken with Yukon gold potatoes, harvest pear crisp with candied ginger.
Blend: 72% Pinot Noir and 28% Chardonnay.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Flavors of apple skin and lemon verbena accent this wine’s tart, high-toned acidity and restrained richness. A winery flagship, it presents as dry and textured, with a tight structure of finesse. It finishes on a hazelnut tone.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Classic Vintage Brut is blended of 72% Pinot Noir and 28% Chardonnay with 3.7 grams dosage. It opens with notes of toast, sliced almond and gunflint with green apple, Bosc pear, river stone, bread dough and flaky pastry. The palate is light to medium-bodied and dry, with lively, finely beaded mousse, balanced fruit and tirage flavors and lifted by juicy acidity on the long finish. This is friendly and easy to drink! 2,425 cases produced.
Iron Horse is best known for its Sparkling Wines, which have been served at the White House since 1985, beginning with the historic U.S.-Russian Summit Meetings ending the Cold War, at the White House Millennium celebrations ushering in the new century, and at the White House dinner honoring the Pope.
Their Chardonnay is considered a signature wine for the cool, foggy Green Valley region. Pinot Noir is the winery's rising star wine.
Iron Horse has been named an American icon in a reference book published by Random House called "Icons of the American Market Place". Listed in alphabetical order, Iron Horse takes its place between iPod and Jack Daniel’s, validating Iron Horse’s reputation as a brand backed by pride, passion and quality.
The Iron Horse name came from a train that cut across the property in the 1890s. The logo, the rampant horse on a weather vane, came from a 19th century weathervane found while clearing away the rubble to build the winery.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
Situated on the foggier and colder western edge of the Russian River Valley, almost abutting the Sonoma Coast appellation, Green Valley is one of California’s most reputable Chardonnay and Pinot noir producing regions. It is also a wonderful source of sparkling wines made from these varieties.
Goldridge soils abound throughout the Green Valley appellation. This fine, dark, sandy loam and fractured sandstone is derived from the remains of ancient inland seabeds dating back three to five million years. It is valuable for high quality grape growing because of its excellent drainage and low fertility.