Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
2012 was a warm growing season with a good crop, full clusters, plenty of sunshine and higher alcohols, Steve Kistler remembers. It was also the last year the Occidental wines were crafted at the Kistler Vineyards winery in Forestville. The 2012 Pinot Noir Occidental Station Vineyard Cuvée Catherine is maturing gracefully, with a pale ruby color and dramatically unfurling aromatics: red plums and pomegranate give way to woodsmoke, mushrooms, juniper and forest floor. Medium-bodied, it floods the mouth with generous layers of fruit and earth. It’s structured by powdery tannins and mouthwatering acidity and has a long finish streaked with botanical tones.
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Wine Spectator
Beautifully crafted, dense and structured, with tight acidity and firm focus, this gushes with zesty wild raspberry, blackberry and savory underbrush notes that unfold to reveal layers of flavor and dimension. Drink now through 2025.
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.