Patz & Hall Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (375ML half-bottle) 2017
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Winemaker Notes
This is an approachable Pinot Noir with fine-grained tannins, freshness and purity. Intense aromas of Bing cherry, strawberry, carnation flowers and licorice notes pour from the glass. Though nicely dense and full on the palate, the wine avoids heaviness with fresh acidity and bright red fruit flavors that resolve on a long, detailed finish. This 2017 offering has the essential elegance and purity that defines great Pinot Noir.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
James Hall blends this wine from 18 vineyards, mostly in the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley. He lets the fermentation start slowly, with ambient yeasts, then finishes it with cultured yeasts, aging the wine in French oak barrels (45 percent new) and bottling it unfiltered. The wine is beefy and youthfully tannic, even as the color is transparent in the glass. Behind the tannins, there’s a tight, cool and saline pinot with plush black-cherry flavors.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A larger production cuvée, the appellation 2017 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is well worth seeking out, offering a charming, forward, medium-bodied style as well as lots of textbook spiced red fruits, pine forest, and underbrush-like aromas and flavors.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2017 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast was made with 100% whole cluster and aged in 45% new oak. Pale to medium ruby-purple, it has expressive aromas of red and black cherries, roasted cranberries, woodsmoke and orange peel with a classy frame of allspice-like new oak plus earth and charcuterie touches. It’s light to medium-bodied and silky with good intensity, mouthwatering acidity and grainy tannins, finishing long.
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Wine Enthusiast
A savory edge of sage and dried herb combines with richer flavors of berries and cola. Textured tannins and bright acidity lend support to this balanced wine from a cool-climate appellation.
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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.