Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The most structured, backward, and restrained of the Pinot Noirs is the dark ruby/plum-colored 2005 Pinot Noir Marcassin Vineyard. Notes of crushed rock, sweet cherries, raspberries and gamey autumnal forest floor notes as well as spring flowers make for a reserved but burgeoning, enormously promising aromatic display. In the mouth, it is powerful and full-bodied, with superb texture, definition, purity, good acidity, and ripe tannin. This is a remarkable Pinot Noir that should drink well for 15 or more years.
Rating: 98+ -
Wine Spectator
Fresh floral and berry aromas are firm, ripe, intense and delicate on the palate, under- rather than overstated, with taut wild berry, mineral, sage and underbrush, finishing with a persistent mix of mineral and berry.
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.