Winemaker Notes
#23 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2023
The 2021 leads with a medium plus color and a flavor profile featuring pomegranates, ground herbs, plum and black cherry. Smoke, loamy earth and spring flowers add a savory note to balance the fruit. There are some chewy tannins on the finish. As usual there is very little new oak on this wine so the structure here is more fruit tannin than barrel.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2021 Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast) is a real stand out, as it so often does. Dark blue/purplish fruit, spice, menthol, licorice and lavender are all amplified. This potent, deep Pinot packs a serious punch. I wouldn't plan on opening a bottle anytime soon. This is one of the most heady Sonoma Coast bottlings I have tasted from Rivers-Marie.
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Wine Spectator
Though not shy, with a seriously endowed core of blackberry and boysenberry compote flavors, this stays bright and racy, with mouthwatering acidity stretching things out to let in black tea, sweet tobacco and dried anise notes. Reveals a late flash of savory and minerally accents on the finish, ultimately offering a nice counterpoint to the fruit.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast pours a semi opaque ruby/purple and reveals expressive aromatics of pressed violets, black raspberry, and fresh earth. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with notes of crunchy ripe berries, dusty soil, and tea leaf, it has wonderful purity, ripe tannins, and a fresh lift of acidity on the finish. This is a fantastic entry to the wines of Rivers Marie and offers a ton of value.
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.