Villa Mt. Eden Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir 2010
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Under former winemaker, Mike McGrath’s, 25 years of leadership, Villa Mt. Eden earned five placements on Wine Spectator’s annual “Top 100” and many best value accolades. Villa Mt. Eden also moved production facilities up the road on the Silverado Trail. In 2009 McGrath’s longtime assistant winemaker Armando de Santiago took the helm as winemaker at Villa Mt. Eden, placing renewed focus on Villa’s enduring mission to showcase distinguished regions and vineyards of California. With his unique background in philosophy and naturopathy, as well as winemaking, Armando is in many ways a natural fit for Villa Mt. Eden. This modern day Renaissance man’s passion for crafting elegant wines with fruit intensity and a focus on place, is ideally suited to guiding this acclaimed winery into its next chapter.
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.