Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This offers very attractive, fresh raspberries and darker cherries with woody spices, delivering such attractive complexity and allure. A hallmark of this wine. The palate has impressive dimension and delivers such smooth, red-cherry to raspberry flavors, amid sleek, fluid and long tannins. Lovely freshness throughout. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir The Pivot Vineyard is pale to medium ruby with an open nose of dried rose petal, tangerine peel, warm dusty earth, spiced blackberries, dried red cherries and warm cranberry—lovely layers and perfume. The palate is light to medium-bodied with layers of warm fruits, earth and spice, structured by grainy tannins and juicy freshness on the long, spicy finish. Rating: 92+
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.