Winemaker Notes
This Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir has a deep garnet, crushed cranberry color which illustrates the depth of this cool climate Pinot Noir. Right out of the glass this wine is perfumed with elegant dark fruit from ripe Bing cherry to black raspberry notes. The wine is subtly spiced with integrated cinnamon and clove spices and backed with mocha notes. On the palate the wine carries through consistently with the aromatics and displays the ripe and juicy cherry and raspberry fruit notes with balanced acidity and generous vanilla and toasted oak notes revealing silky tannins that linger.
This wine pairs well with five spice roasted duck breast and French lentils. While standing up to a filet mignon, the profile is nice with fresh line caught Yellow Tail or Bluefin Tuna off the grill and served with an eggplant, goat cheese and sun dried tomato frittata. If you love Burgundy, this wine needs nothing more than a wine opener, a glass and good company.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a value-driven wine that overdelivers on its price point, offering black cherry, vanilla and dried herb around an oaky center. Made in a full-bodied, fleshy and lush style, it finishes in earthy varietal character and drops of cinnamon.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Vinum Cellars Insider Pinot Noir brings attractive and generosity onto the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine offers aromas and flavors of black fruit and licorice. Enjoy it with a savory, rotisserie leg of lamb. (Tasted: October 14, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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.