Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Erich Bradley blends this wine from four vineyards: Gap’s Crown, San Giacomo, Rodgers Creek and Walala. Its broad, rich flavors are structured by firm, fruit-skin tannins with the pumice-stone abrasion of sandstone. The fruit gains clarity and freshness with air, turning toward raspberries and crunchy red cherries, the wine’s initial volatility shifting it into smoky complexity. It’s a long, fragrant view of Sonoma’s coastal ridges.
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James Suckling
Aromas of watermelon and cherry with hints of dried lemon follow through to a full body, dense fruit on the center palate and a dried fruit and lemon aftertaste. Drink now.
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Wine Enthusiast
This larger-production wine is sourced from several single-vineyard sites, including Rodgers Creek, Sangiacomo and Gap's Crown. Together they find unity in fruit-forward flavors of blueberry, cherry and pomegranate, the oak persistent and powerful amidst a backdrop of tight-grained tannin. The concentration is pronounced.
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Wine Spectator
Young and tight, with a zesty mix of dusty herb and dried and ripe berry flavors, ending with chewy tannins. Though there is much to admire here, this wine is best served by short-term cellaring, as the flavors should be more forthcoming in a year or so. Drink now through 2023. 2,275 cases made.
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.