Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A bit tannic and earthy, with tobacco and cola flavors accenting the fruitier cherries and blackberries. Oak adds sweet, smoky notes of toast, and the finish includes lots of tangy spices. Elegantly constructed, this young Pinot needs a few year in the cellar.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Long on well-ripened black cherries and fit with a considerable complement of toasty oak, this rich, multi-faceted young Pinot is filled out with complexing elements of dark soils and smoke. It exhibits good palatal weight and a fine sense of flesh, and it finds just the right touch of acidity for balance. Its long-lasting finish shows the kind of stamina that bodes well for age, and, as good as it is at the moment, it comes with high expectations for better in time.
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Wine & Spirits
This pinot noir has substantial weight and it also has drive, the flavors of bosky cherry, foresty mushroom and pine held tight within a rich texture. Oak contributes to the smoky scent and adds to the mineral tannin without blocking the clean fruit. The flavors last, ready to pour with grilled quail.
Merry Edwards Winery was founded in 1997 and produces critically acclaimed terroir-driven Pinot Noirs and Sauvignon Blanc using site-specific viticulture in the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast appellations. Over two decades, Merry assembled a stellar collection of vineyards and with her meticulous attention to detail crafted Pinot Noirs of immense depth, elegant structure and exceptional longevity. Her Sauvignon Blanc is among the most sought after in the world.
Now a Certified California Sustainable Winery, the brand entered a new chapter after Merry’s retirement. Merry’s handpicked successor, Winemaker Heidi von der Mehden, and Winery President Nicole Carter have taken up exactly where Merry left off and will continue to make wines treasured by legions of Merry Edwards’ fans well into the future.
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.