Winemaker Notes
Luminous, aromatic, and beautifully lifted. A high-toned bouquet of red berry fruits is accented by floral notes of fresh rose petals. There is a crystalline, salty edge bracing the raspberry and bright tart cherry fruit. For all its concentration and intensity, the finish is graceful and very fine.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2022 Pinot Noir Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvee Elizabeth is a bright ruby color, and the nose is ripe and expressively perfumed, spiced with black raspberries, cardamom, dark stones, and pine. The palate is medium-framed, with a ripe but compact feel, snappy and crisp, refined tannins, lifted acidity, and an attractive salty spice on the finish. It offers fantastic intensity as well as compact depth and complexity. It’s fabulous all around.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvée Elizabeth is deep and heady on the nose. Youthful pomegranate and rhubarb give way to cinnamon, red licorice, hibiscus and rooibos tea, plus the complex woodsy and spicy undertones characteristic of the Occidental wines. The palate offers concentration without weight, flooding the mouth with waves of crunchy, saline-laced red fruit. It’s structured by lacy tannins and vibrant acidity and has a long finish with a flourish of spicy accents. It will benefit from several years in the cellar.
Rating: 95+ -
Vinous
Silky, aromatic and light on its feet, the 2022 Pinot Noir Bodega Headlands Vineyard Cuvée Elizabeth is a wine of exquisite finesse and understated beauty. Bright acids lift a core of gentle red/purplish fruit in this classy, polished Pinot from Occidental. All the elements are so well balanced.
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Wine Spectator
Full of alluring charm in the form of dried rose hip, rooibos tea, white pepper and cherry coulis notes that drive through, showing subtle but persistent underlying energy. Hibiscus and mulberry details add range and length alongside a flash of ocean breeze minerality.
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.