Winemaker Notes
A stunning bouquet of purple fruit, cassis, and boysenberry that leaps from the glass. A very precise wine, framed by its firm acidity and grounded in its gravelly minerality. Silky tannins are entirely folded into the fruit. Finishes bursting with vibrant purple flavors and a rising violet perfume.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Pinot Noir Occidental Station Vineyard is impressive, having dodged any negative impacts from the growing season’s wildfires or heat waves. “We really were just lucky here,” Steve Kistler says, “with that churn of wind off the ocean to flush things out, and we pick early. We started picking a day before the fires started and had everything in before smoke became part of the conversation.” Pure and expressive, it unfurls continuously in the glass. Pomegranate, rhubarb and blood orange are accented by detailed touches of seaweed, iodine, juniper and iron on the nose. The medium-bodied palate offers unparalleled concentration, its vivid flavors structured by powerful, grainy tannins, and it has a very long, layered finish.
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.