Winemaker Notes
Like Savoy Vineyard, the Thieriot wines can pair well with both fish and game.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is so spicy and meaty with mushroom and blackberry. Burn orange peel. White pepper. Tangerine. Full body to medium body. Extremely fine tannins with vivid acidities. Extraordinary.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chardonnay B.A. Thieriot Vineyard is youthfully subdued at this early stage, offer suggestions of peach blossoms, grapefruit peel and yuzu, plus hints of allspice and beeswax. Light to medium-bodied and quite taut, the intensity of citrus and stone fruit is almost electric, with a lively backbone and long, mineral-laced finish.
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Wine Spectator
Tilts toward the tart berry side in a pleasing way. Offers more cranberry, pepper and spice notes than opulence, yet the trim profile keeps the flavors fresh and lively.
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.