Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Delicate layers of raspberry and strawberry define this coastal wine, which is deliciously layered and lightly complex. Pomegranate and blood orange flavors give it an additional lift of freshness and focus within its restrained style.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is pale ruby-purple colored with fragrant notes of red roses, black tea and lavender with a core of cranberries, Bing cherries and black raspberries plus notions of black pepper and truffles. Light to medium-bodied with great vivacity and freshness, it offers plenty of perfumed fruit and a well-balanced chewy frame, finishing on a compelling mineral note.
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.