Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Williams Selyem Calegari Vineyard Pinot Noir is a bright and sassy wine with excellent staying power. TASTING NOTES: This wine is lively and active. Its jubilant red fruit aromas and flavors remain long and intense on the palate. Pair it with oven-baked game hen with a raspberry-accented white wine reduction sauce. (Tasted: July 30, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby-purple, the 2017 Pinot Noir Calegari Vineyard has delicate aromas of woodsmoke, pipe tobacco, dried bark and amaro with black and red cherries and berries at the core plus hints of lilac and pepper. Light to medium-bodied, it's spicy in the mouth with citrus peel accents and earthy character plus a touch of classy new oak spice. It’s framed by tightly defined, fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long. I can’t wait to taste this again after some more time in bottle. 654 cases produced.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine’s oak dissipates to reveal strawberry scents and richer cherry-scented fruit, then the oak reappears in smooth, chocolate-dense tannins. The flavors come together in the end, lasting with that cherry sweetness.
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.