Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2018 Pinot Noir Le Duc Noir has a Burgundian vibe as well as classy leather, red fruit, and dried flower-like aromas and flavors. It’s medium-bodied, elegant, and silky on the palate, with lots of character. This cuvee comes from a handful of sites on the Sonoma Coast and was brought up in 15% new French oak.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby-purple colored, the 2018 Le Duc Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir jumps from the glass with rambunctious Bing cherries, black raspberries and fragrant earth notions plus wafts of lavender and roses. Medium-bodied, the palate is refreshing, elegant and beautifully perfumed with soft tannins and a good, long, zippy finish.
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.