Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2010 Pinot Noir Estate Freestone Vineyard is more fruit-driven than the Pastorale. Immediate and juicy, the 2010 jumps from the glass with layers of radiant red fruit. I would prefer to drink the 2010 while the fruit remains front and center. This supple, resonant Pinot is another gorgeous wine from Phelps. The 2010 is a blend of roughly equal parts Pastorale and Quarter Moon Vineyards.
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Wine Enthusiast
This shows the power and purity of the winery's coastal Pastorale and Quarter Moon vineyards, in this cool vintage that allowed for long hang time. Although some coastal Pinots were plagued by rot, this one was not, resulting in a wine with delicious raspberry and cherry notes, accented by new French oak. It's very fine, complex and enjoyable now.
Joseph Phelps Vineyards is a family-owned winery committed to crafting world class, estate-grown wines. Founded in 1973 when Joe Phelps purchased a former cattle ranch near St. Helena in the Napa Valley, the winery now controls and farms nearly 375 acres of vines on eight estate vineyards in St. Helena, the Stags Leap District, Oakville, Rutherford, Oak Knoll District, Carneros and South Napa Valley. In 1999, the Phelps family added 100 acres of vineyard property near the town of Freestone on the Sonoma Coast, where Phelps now grows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Phelps is best known for its flagship Napa Valley blend of red Bordeaux varietals, Insignia, first produced in 1974. Awarded Wine Spectator's "Wine of the Year" in 2005, Insignia is widely regarded as a qualitative benchmark for California winemaking.
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.