Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A gem of a wine, the 2018 Pinot Noir Gap's Crown Vineyard comes from one of the great sites on the Sonoma Coast and saw a touch of stems (10%) and 50% new French oak. Tasting like a mix of a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir with its richness and depth and a Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir with its elegance and finesse, this brilliant wine is loaded with wild strawberry and darker berry fruits intermixed with lots violets, spice, pine cone, and forest floor aromas and flavors. It packs plenty of richness and depth on the palate, has awesome tannins, a stacked mid-palate, and no shortage of length on the finish. Don't miss it!
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James Suckling
Blueberry and violet aromas make for an attractive nose with a big, fleshy-cherry hit on the palate, delivered amid spicy oak and juicy tannins. Holds fresh and deep with ripe dark cherries to close.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Pinot Noir Gap's Crown Vineyard has a medium ruby-purple color and scents of cured meats, rhubarb, Earl Grey tea leaves and earth with touches of woodsmoke. The medium-bodied palate offers floral fruits in a grainy, fresh frame and it finishes long, delicate and uplifted.
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Wine Spectator
Lively, with engaging floral and forest floor notes to the crisp, well-structured dried cherry and berry flavors. Savory richness extends on the finish, showing leafy details.
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.”
A vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.