Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This very tight Pinot is dense, concentrated and focused on pure, ripe, layered plum and raspberry fruit. Impressive showing.—Kosta Browne non-blind vertical (March 2011). Drink now through 2019. 803 cases made.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
First, let us say that this is a very good Pinot Noir by any standard, and it shows fine concentration if a little less succulence that the very best of its clan. Long on sweet oak and fully ripe, it tightens up and gives ground as it goes to back-end acidity, and its fruit retreats just a bit at the finish. It too is a wine that is sure to be helped by a few years of aging, but it never reaches quite as far or promises as much in time as its more deeply filled mates.
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.