Lioco Sonoma Coast Laguna Pinot Noir 2015 Front Bottle Shot
Lioco Sonoma Coast Laguna Pinot Noir 2015 Front Bottle Shot Lioco Sonoma Coast Laguna Pinot Noir 2015 Front Label

Winemaker Notes

The 2015 Lioco Sonoma Coast Laguna Pinot Noir has always been about expressing the essence of the coast. There is a coolness to these wines—a sour red fruit, rhubarb, pomegranate, sweet-tart thing that you get only from sites in ocean-impacted zones in Sonoma—Laguna shows this. It is a blend of their stalwart Teac Mor Vineyard near Sebastopol (situated in the lowest part of the valley where all the fog eddies out) with a little piece of Martini Clone Pinot they grabbed from John Balletto's vineyard out on Burnside Road next door to Littorai.

The resulting wine, in character with the vintage, is at once powerful yet graceful.

This wine will pair nicely with shoyu ramen, E NC BBQ, and wild mushroom flatbread.

Professional Ratings

  • 92
    Tart and racy, the red-fruited 2015 Lioco Laguna Pinot Noir slides from raspberries to subtle hints of blueberries. The wine's crisp and beautifully balanced palate pair superbly with a lightly-seasoned, grilled salmon. (Tasted: October 5, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
  • 91
    Clean and racy, this carries high-toned scents of rose hips and Moroccan mint tea on a line of tart, cranberry-red fruit. It’s a refreshing wine; drink it cool with roast chicken.
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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.

MBWLIO15LPSC_2015 Item# 344640