Winemaker Notes
The 2016 is an elegant, finesse-driven wine with copious character and a complex personality. The color is a garnet hue with hints of strawberry and flashes of brilliance. Aromatically, the wine is wide-open and effusive with notes of ripe, candied cherry, potpourri, Asian spice, underbrush and cloves. The mouthfeel is a smooth wave of layer upon layer of texture, carrying flavors of deep red fruits, iron, game and thimbleberry. The finest of tannins grace the long, resounding
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
I was also able to taste two Sonoma Coast Pinot Noirs from Mike, both meriting attention. All from the Wayfarer Vineyard, the 2016 Pinot Noir Kashaya comes from three different parcels and saw 30% stems. It offers a beautiful, layered, complex style in its darker cherry, underbrush, forest floor, and savory umami and cured meat notes. It's seamless, silky, and pure, with a great finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aged 11 months in 46% new French oak using 25% whole cluster fermentation, the 2016 Pinot Noir Kashaya is pale to medium ruby with a hint of purple. Fragrant earth and dried herbs notions leap from the glass over a core of red cherries, cranberries and redcurrants with touches of fungi, damp soil and mossy bark. The palate is medium-bodied, very fresh, plush and earthy with layers of red fruit and an earth/herbal lift on the long finish.
Rating: 93+
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.