Winemaker Notes
Baked mixed berries with hints of cacao nibs and raw black currants. Herbs de Provence and forest floor shine through.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A step up over the Russian River blend, the 2016 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast offers more red fruits, raspberries, flowers, and rose petal notes, with a pinewood/forest floor character developing with time in the glass. This medium-bodied, silky, elegant Pinot Noir has a terrific sense of minerality, integrated acidity, and a complex, nuanced style that’s going to evolve nicely.
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James Suckling
Aromas of oyster shell and dark berries with plenty of dried strawberries and spices. Medium-bodied, very tight and focused with silky tannins. A fresh and slightly salty finish. Crisp and vivid. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast was aged in 44% new French oak, 16% concrete tank and 2% wood tanks, ranging from 10-15 months depending on the vessel. Medium ruby, it's scented of cranberry sauce, wood smoke, loamy earth and forest floor with a core of red and black cherries and berries plus notions of pencil shavings and licorice. Light to medium-bodied and broody in the mouth, it has a sturdy, pleasantly chalky frame with seamlessly woven freshness to lift the earth-laced finish.
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Wine Spectator
Plump and generous up front, with elegant plum, raspberry and wild berry notes, slowly building depth and dimension on the finish, where the flavors linger.
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.