Winemaker Notes
The 2019 Sarah's Vineyard Tondré Grapefield Pinot Noir has a vast red fruit and floral presence with dark cherry, raspberry, and crushed rose petal notes in the glass. On the palate, the bright fruit is complemented by baking spice, pepper, and a hint of vanilla with smooth, silky tannins.
Professional Ratings
-
Vinous
Glistening ruby-red. Oak-spiced cherry and dark berry aromas pick up hints of smokiness and cola as the wine opens up. In an ample style, offering lush blackberry and cherry-vanilla flavors that firm up slowly through the back half. Even tannins frame a persistent finish that leaves jammy dark berry and spice notes behind.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Broad aromas of peach and butter are cut by lime zest on the nose of this single-vineyard expression. Stone-fruit and melon flavors are balanced by prickly acidity on the sip, which grows riper toward the finish.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Home to some of California’s most influential winemaking pioneers of the late 1800s, Paul Masson and Charles Lefranc, the Santa Clara Valley AVA hugs up against the southwestern border of today’s famous Silicon Valley and excels in the production of bold reds, as well as some whites.