Winemaker Notes
Dark ruby in color. Aromas of vanilla, cola, dark ripe blueberry, blackberry, cooking spices (clove) and ripe black cherry. Flavors of pepper spice, bright blueberry, blackberry, fig, with silky tannins and a long, luxurious finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A fuller, more concentrated version of the variety from a highly sought-after vineyard, this youthful wine offers a grippy tightness, savory in tea, tobacco and a touch of tomato leaf. Along the way, juicy blueberry and blackberry enter the picture, finished in black peppery spice. Cellar through 2023.
Cellar Selection. -
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A most complex and appealing wine from the Sonoma Coast, the 2013 Trombetta Family Gap's Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir shows an incredible range of nuances—cranberries, strawberries, blackberries, anise, black pepper, wild leaves, and earth. Not your everyday, artisan Pinot Noir that is sometimes more middle-of-the-road and prototypical of the grape variety in the marketplace—this wine has a mind of its own, and it is pretty unique, somewhat wild and with its untamed nuances. Pair it with a mildly seasoned lamb stew and experience a pure taste of the Sonoma Coast AVA. (Tasted: August 14, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
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Tasting Panel
Lush and polished with deep flavors of ripe cherry and raspberry with fine structure; long and quite lovely.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Their third offering, the 2013 Pinot Noir Gap’s Crown Vineyard from the Sonoma Coast ratchets up the level of intensity, especially with the forest floor component, black cherry and blackcurrant fruit, medium to full body, and a long, rich, pure finish. Like its sibling, this is a serious Pinot Noir, very impressively crafted, and ideal for drinking over the next 7-8 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.”
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.