Winemaker Notes
Delicate white rose petals, orange peel and crushed pomegranate are followed by freshly picked raspberries, wild strawberries, and white tea. Coastal wet rock, sea moss, ripe red berries and a kiss of salinity transport us to the sea that sits just beyond Sea Field. Floral and violet notes follow, with lingering hints of crushed wild strawberries, offering an incredibly long and vibrant finish.?
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Spices and dried strawberries with stone and mineral aromas as well as sandalwood and oyster shell. Some orange peel and lavender. Full-bodied with layers of very fine tannins that have a firm and direct nature. It goes on for minutes. So structured with tannins that spread across the palate. Needs time to soften and open.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The jeweled ruby-hued 2022 Pinot Noir Sea Field comes from a 4.8-acre site in the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA and offers a more savory, coastally influenced profile. In the glass, it boasts aromas of wild cherries, incense, pine needles, rocky earth, and toasted spice. On the palate, it also takes on more intensity, and while it remains medium-bodied, it has crystalline purity with ripe concentration throughout, as well as ripe tannins and a clean, salty, mineral finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Grapes for the 2022 Pinot Noir Sea Field Vineyard has inviting scents of raspberry and blackberry jam, tea leaves, orange peel and earth. The medium-bodied palate is silky and mouthwatering with alluring, perfumed flavors and a long, expressive finish.
As winemakers and farmers, Carlo and Dante attribute a great deal of what they have learned to their grandfather Robert and father Tim, both whom influenced them from a young age.
Carlo and Dante’s father Tim was a pioneer for California Pinot Noir in the early 1970s and has always had a tremendous regard for the great wines of Burgundy. To this day his Pinot Noirs from the 1970s are showing incredibly well. Carlo and Dante credit their father’s passion for Pinot Noir as the early inspiration that got them excited at a young age.
Dante studied abroad in Switzerland at the Webster University in Genève as well at UC Davis in California. Carlo studied in France at the University of Aix-en-Provence and in Italy at the University of Milan. After their formal studies were complete Carlo and Dante continued their educational work with the winemaking team lead by their father Tim Mondavi at Robert Mondavi Winery and Opus One.
When Robert Mondavi Winery was sold in 2004, the brothers joined their father Tim, Aunt-Marcia and grandfather Robert as they founded Continuum in 2005.
In 2013 Carlo and Dante founded RAEN winery with the goal to produce world class Pinot Noir on the western hills of the Sonoma Coast. RAEN currently focuses on making three Pinot Noirs, from three unique sites on the Sonoma Coast.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
On the far western edge of the larger Sonoma Coast appellation, the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA hugs right up against the Pacific coast. Vineyards, planted at rugged elevations between 920 to 1,800 feet, occupy only two percent of the total land in the AVA. Fort Ross-Seaview growers believe that the region boasts an ideal mix of sunshine, cool air and beneficial stress for producing high quality Chardonnay and Pinot noir.