Winemaker Notes
The 2021 Pinot Noir is fresh and lively with perfumed black raspberry and cherry aromatics wrapped in rustic forest floor notes. Juicy Bing cherry, savory herbs, and ripe dark berries create a complex and textured palate with acid structure and balance leading to a delightfully engaging finish.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Lovely energy to this with lavender and rose petal with strawberries and raspberries. Slate and stone undertones. Minerality. Seaweed. Medium- to full-bodied with creamy tannin's. Fine texture. Fresh at the end. Tension in the finish. Drink or hold.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir Freestone Vineyards is primarily estate fruit, with 16% purchased from growers. Vinified with 8% whole clusters, it was matured for 13 months in 33% new French oak. It has alluring aromas of cranberry, pomegranate sauce, woodsmoke and undertones of earth and spice. The medium-bodied palate has a silky texture, focused freshness, a concentrated core of savory fruit and a long, ethereal finish.
-
Wine Enthusiast
A rich mouthfeel and well-ripened fruit flavors give this fullbodied wine a friendly, generous expression, while modest tannins add a touch of grip to balance things out. Accented with an array of oak spices, the wine is easy to love.
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.