Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A delicious young Pinot. Intense and concentrated, with ripe, bright, sweet-sour cherry and wild berry flavors, hints of flowers and spice and a long, lively aftertaste that shows a trace of heat.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The opaque purple-colored 2001 Pinot Noir Moonshine Ranch exhibits tremendous fruit as well as density, but it remains closed and backward. A brooding, thick, rich, intense Pinot, it could easily be mistaken for a Rhone Valley Cote Rotie given its floral notes and tremendously intense concentration.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.