Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The utterly profound 2003 Pinot Noir Blue Slide Ridge is a candidate for one of California’s greatest Pinot Noirs. A full-bodied beauty, it offers up aromas of plums, anise, forest floor, black and blue fruits, and gamy, sweet, aged beef. With unreal complexity, in addition to superb texture, purity, and definition, this is a tour de force in winemaking that confirms the brilliance of this husband and wife team who recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.
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Wine Spectator
Wonderful fruit purity, with rich, fleshy plum, wild berry and raspberry fruit that's supple and focused, picking up subtle hints of nutmeg and sage and ending with a long, sleek, polished finish.
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.