Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is produced in microscopic amounts, the result of sourcing grapes from a notoriously difficult-to-farm site. It rewards in flavor: hearty cherry and pomegranate fruit, a crisp, crunchy texture, powerful tannins and oak, and an underlying minerality that presents as elusively as a cloud of fog.
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Jeb Dunnuck
As with the Trenton View release, the 2013 Pinot Noir Great Oak has a completely mature, almost amber color yet surprises with its intensity and complexity. A wine that was 77% destemmed and aged just 10 months in 30% new French oak, it offers lots of sassafras, sappy herb, mint, and bay leaf notes as well as plenty of sweet cherry fruit. This carries to a medium-bodied Pinot Noir that has a fully mature style, a core of sweet fruit, good acidity, and a clean finish. I'd probably guess it was 20 years older than it is, but it's a terrific bottle of Pinot Noir.
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.