Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a seamless wine with ultra-fine tannins and beautiful glycerin texture. Mineral. Full body, superb depth and length. Yes! Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Youthfully flippant, this block of the Wayfarer Vineyard is sitting largely in sandstone, where the grapes pull remarkably revealing minerality from the soil. Racy and flinty, this medium-bodied, structured and flirty wine dances in a generosity of rich red fruit, raspberry mostly, seasoned in clove and cardamom that's fresh and incredibly seductive. Still, it'll age; drink now through 2024.
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Jeb Dunnuck
This cuvee comes from two blocks that have the most superficial soils in the vineyard, i.e. forcing the roots to go into the “mother rock” of the vineyard. A blend of Mont Eden (which is clone 37) and clone 777, the 335-case 2014 Pinot Noir Mother Rocks is a hands down success that offers fabulous notes of cassis, framboise, spice and spring flowers in a ripe, sexy, yet also elegant and ethereally textured package. It has tons to love and given its purity and balance, it will keep delivering the goods for another decade or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep ruby-purple, the 2014 Pinot Noir Mother Rock (made from Mt. Eden and 777 clones) has a cherry cola and chocolate box-laced nose with suggestions of black raspberries, dried Provence herbs and menthol. The medium to full-bodied palate is packed with lively black cherry and spicy flavors, supported by grippy tannins and just enough acid to lift the fruit through the long finish.
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.”
On the far western edge of the larger Sonoma Coast appellation, the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA hugs right up against the Pacific coast. Vineyards, planted at rugged elevations between 920 to 1,800 feet, occupy only two percent of the total land in the AVA. Fort Ross-Seaview growers believe that the region boasts an ideal mix of sunshine, cool air and beneficial stress for producing high quality Chardonnay and Pinot noir.