Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The mindboggling 2007 Pinot Noir Marcassin Estate may be the finest Pinot Noir Wetlaufer and Turley have ever produced. A wine of extraordinary sublimity, intensity, authority and palate presence, it offers wonderfully ripe (but not overripe) blue and red fruits intermixed with notions of forest floor, spring flowers, camphor, plum sauce and a smoky character that I identify with Peking duck. The wine possesses staggering intensity and richness but it is neither heavy nor overbearing. This is an exquisite Pinot Noir the likes of which Marcassin has never before made. It should continue to evolve for two decades.
Rating: 99+ -
Wine Spectator
Ripe plum, olallieberry and black cherry fruit flirts with jam in this intense and focused Pinot that is seemingly big and full, yet also graceful and refined, ending with a touch of soy and porcini. The richest and ripest of the 2007 Marcassins.
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.