Winemaker Notes
The name Sonnenberg, literally meaning “sun mountain”, speaks for itself: Thanks to its south-facing orientation and favorable incline, this outstanding location benefits from an optimum amount of sunshine and a favorable microclimate. The soil is a bone-rich amalgamation of greywacke and greywacke slate offset with deposits of clay over slope wash through to loess and loess loam. Such an environment is particularly suited to the Pinot Noir vines, which reward us for their place in the sun with full-bodied wines that maintain a fruity and elegant character thanks to the stony element of their soil.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Plenty of toasty oak here, but the wine has the ripe-cherry fruit and the flesh to carry it well. Nice acidity, too. If the tannins were less chewy at the finish, this would rate even higher. Drink or hold.
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.”
