Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2013 Pinot Noir Trenton Estate is beautiful on all accounts. Sporting a slightly evolved yet still healthy ruby color, it gives up a smorgasbord of sassafras, mint, bay leaf, forest floor, and chocolate that gains depth and richness with time in the glass. Beautifully textured, medium to full-bodied, with a seamless, elegant style that's a joy to drink, it will probably continue evolving gracefully for another decade, yet it's showing incredibly well today. Readers looking for a complex, nuanced Pinot Noir will love this.
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Wine Enthusiast
Earth and black tea meet forest floor notes in this dark, brooding and powerfully full-bodied wine. A touch of reduction accentuates the profuse oak, recalling clove and cardamom, as tingling acidity vies for attention and integration.
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.