Trombetta Gap's Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir 2011
Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All Vintages
Since their debut with the 2010 vintage, the Trombetta bottlings exhibit the vintners’ unmistakable emphasis on making wines to accompany food. The label sprang from a serious passion with home gardening that merged with some inspired home-winemaking efforts, the winery’s focus is on producing balanced wines that reflect their vineyard source and that perfectly accompany food.
The Trombetta wines show well upon release, but we recommend cellaring our releases for a year or two, just to give them a little time to evolve further.
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.
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.”