Winemaker Notes
This wine is a stunner. I tasted all the wines at one seating and the nose on this wine stood out. All I wrote the first time was… gorgeous. Aromas of orange rind, raspberry, violets, and hints of Christmas spice leap out of the glass. I kept going back to it over the two hours I tasted and it mellowed out a bit and the aromas coalesced into a wine I could just sit and smell all day. The flavors in the mouth are consistent with the smell and the fruit components are given ballast by earth, tea, and bark notes mixed with leather and anise seed.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is very expressive, with warm blackberries, cranberry sauce, blood orange, black tea leaves, forest floor and an undercurrent of dark spices and earth. Medium-bodied and concentrated, it offers Goldilocks ripeness and angostura-laced flavor layers, finishing long and seamlessly fresh.
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.