Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
The palate instantly engages with soil surrounded by tobacco and fresh basil in this Pinot Noir with a style all its own. Deep notes of roast coffee amplify ripe, brambly blackberry and black cherry. White-peppered cedar and an upright structure are noteworthy.
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James Suckling
A full-bodied wine with plush and generous fruit and pretty floral aromas. Mouth-filling with fine, chalky tannins and flavors of cherries, raspberries and some baking spices.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose of this Pinot delivers a pop of intense black cherry, cedar, and floral aromas, while the palate gives rich tannin and flavors of berry compote, licorice, shattered stone, and cola spice throughout the 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.