Winemaker Notes
Inviting aromas of blueberries, boysenberries, and star anise immerse your nose. The balanced approach is followed by layered tannins with flavors of fig and black cherry. With barrel spice and pomegranate present in the lingering finish.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Coming from the estate’s coolest Russian River Valley vineyard, which is also the first to bloom and last to come in at harvest, the 2022 Pinot Noir Bondi Home Ranch pours a deeper ruby red color and offers deeper layered, savory aromas of kirsch, pine, ripe spice, and pressed flowers, and mossy forest earth. Mouthwatering and persistent from the jump, it’s pure and long on the palate, with a broader feel, ripe tannins, and balanced, fresh acidity. This feels the most like the grand cru of these wines from Martinelli and really takes things to the next level in terms of completeness. Offering a lasting touch of incense on the back palate, it sure is fantastic now, and it’s only going to improve with time.
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Wine Spectator
This plays to ripeness, with the range to support it, offering a mix of raspberry and boysenberry coulis notes alongside a melted licorice accent, plus sassafras and sweet spice hints. A brushstroke of licorice snap adds length and a bit of bling on the finish. This feels fancy. Drink now through 2034. 675 cases made.
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Vinous
The 2022 Pinot Noir Bondi Home Ranch Vineyard emerges from a site in Green Valley—a vineyard with a long growing season. The later harvest results in a Pinot with exotic raciness and ripeness, but is also buffered by bright acids. The Bondi Home Ranch is distinguished by its exuberant, super-ripe profile—almost Zinfandel-like.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Situated on the foggier and colder western edge of the Russian River Valley, almost abutting the Sonoma Coast appellation, Green Valley is one of California’s most reputable Chardonnay and Pinot noir producing regions. It is also a wonderful source of sparkling wines made from these varieties.
Goldridge soils abound throughout the Green Valley appellation. This fine, dark, sandy loam and fractured sandstone is derived from the remains of ancient inland seabeds dating back three to five million years. It is valuable for high quality grape growing because of its excellent drainage and low fertility.