Winemaker Notes
Enjoy with goat cheese, fresh seafood dishes and summer salads.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Over the past decade, the rosé craze has grown into a legitimate category, and now everyone, their second cousins are making pink wines. TASTING NOTES: The 2017 Rodney Strong Vineyards Rosé of Pinot Noir is one of the unequivocal best efforts in the marketplace. This serious effort is both delicate and fulfilling. Pair its red fruit flavors, lively palate, and crisp finish with salmon or tuna sashimi, and you will realize that when a top winery makes a pink wine, it can be something special. (Tasted: April 9, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Effusive in peach flavor and aroma, this is a lovely wine, sizzling in crisp, focused acidity and additional flavors of orange, strawberry and grapefruit. Light in body, it finishes on a flourish of Meyer lemon zest.
Founded by wine industry pioneer, Rod Strong, in 1959, Rodney Strong Vineyards is now owned by the Kleins, a farming-based family that prides itself on land stewardship and a relentless push for superior wine quality from Sonoma County. After purchasing the company in 1989, Tom Klein began the endeavor that today brings together excellent vineyards, the industry's finest winemaking equipment, and exceptional talent. The winery farms and sources grapes from vineyards throughout Sonoma County, focusing on Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley and Chalk Hill. Rodney Strong Vineyards is best known for its estate-bottled and vineyard-designated wines, and is also recognized for their sustainable and Fish Friendly Farming, dedication to solar energy production and becoming carbon neutral in 2009.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
A standout region for its decidedly Californian take on Burgundian varieties, the Russian River Valley is named for the eponymous river that flows through it. While there are warm pockets of the AVA, it is mostly a cool-climate growing region thanks to breezes and fog from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Chardonnay and Pinot Noir reign supreme in Russian River, with the best examples demonstrating a unique combination of richness and restraint. The cool weather makes Russian River an ideal AVA for sparkling wine production, utilizing the aforementioned varieties. Zinfandel also performs exceptionally well here. Within the Russian River Valley lie the smaller appellations of Chalk Hill and Green Valley. The former, farther from the ocean, is relatively warm, with a focus on red and white Bordeaux varieties. The latter is the coolest, foggiest parcel of the Russian River Valley and is responsible for outstanding Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.