Winemaker Notes
This Pinot Noir is truly a labor of love. Handcrafted in every way to insure that our wine has plenty of lush fruit to balance out the crisp acidity that makes the Sonoma Coast unique. The Educated Guess Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir is deep, rich, and concentrated in color and texture with ripe strawberry, dark plum, and wild berry fruit. Hints of spice and cola with firm tannins in the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Nicely structured for a tangy, grippy texture, this appetizing and concentrated wine boasts ripe strawberries, red plums and black cherries on moderate tannins. Tangy acidity and the fresh-tasting fruitiness set it up for infinite, good food pairings.
Roots Run Deep Winery began in 2005 when founder Mark Albrecht set out to answer a simple question: could great Napa Valley wine be both exceptional and accessible? After decades in the wine retail business, Mark saw that too many great bottles were priced or positioned out of reach for everyday drinkers—so he sold his house and everything in it to fund the winery's first vintage and prove otherwise. There was no inherited estate or outside investors behind the project; friends and family who believed in the vision helped turn that leap into a working winery.
That first wine, Educated Guess Napa County Cabernet Sauvignon, became the foundation of the brand. Roots Run Deep believes great wine lives at the intersection of science and craft—combining vineyard data, chemistry, and instinct with a bit of educated guesswork to create wines that are thoughtful, expressive, and approachable. The idea worked: over the years Educated Guess has earned Best Buy, Best of Class honors, and is consistently one of the top selling Napa Valley Cabernets under $50.
More than twenty years later, that same philosophy shapes everything the winery makes. Roots Run Deep still sources fruit primarily from Napa Valley vineyards, while also working with exceptional growers in Sonoma and other regions across California—and the portfolio has grown beyond that first bottle to include a range of small-production wines defined by site, style, and discovery. The name reflects what has always mattered here: strong foundations, deep vineyard relationships, and the belief that great wine should feel both special and approachable.
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.