Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
From a certified biodynamic vineyard planted by Bob and Louisa Lindquist, this bottling offers vivid red cherry fruit, black pepper and tons of clove spice on the nose. The palate is soft with more red fruit, but loaded with ample amounts of star anise and other baking spices. Zesty on all fronts.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
An exciting effort, the youthful and complex 2014 Verdad Sawyer Lindquist Pinot Noir brings a potpourri of deliciousness onto the palate. This wine exhibits wild and dried cherries, some tree bark, and dried leaves. Pair it with a savory beef stew. (Tasted: August 22, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The clear champ in the lineup is the 2014 Pinot Noir Sawyer Lindquist Vineyard, which is a terrific value from the Edna Valley. Its light ruby color is followed by classy notes of autumn leaves, sour cherries, dried cranberries and forest floor. Medium-bodied, supple, polished and elegant, I don’t think it will make incredibly old bones, but it should impress for at least 4-5 years.
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.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.