Winemaker Notes
This glistening garnet wine greets you with alluring aromas of boysenberry, blueberry, and sweet almond. On the palate, deep concentrated flavors of blackberry, coffee, and cola enhance the balance found in its soft tannins and medium body.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
From the great site in the heart of the appellation, this impressive bottling offers a tremendous length of spice, complex notions that contrast well against its light, crisp red fruit. Well balanced and composed, it has length, texture and a suppleness to the tannin, resulting in lasting deliciousness.
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Wine & Spirits
Kirk Lokka dry farms this vineyard in Green Valley, planted in 2003; Adrian Manspeaker, who has worked with Lokka’s grapes since 2010, notes the increasing depth and concentration in the wine as the vines have matured, their roots exploring the Goldridge soils. Though our tasting sheet read “Russian River Valley 2016,” my notes read “rainbows in Green Valley,” the wine’s richness and beautiful clarity recalling the sun hitting a rain shower in these coastal hills. The black-cherry fruit shows some evolution, in notes of soy and black mushroom, while the oak feels seamlessly integrated, broadening the wine as the fruit contracts, then opens again into the light-driven color spectrum of the finish.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.