Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Williams Selyem's priciest Pinot is an acidic, tannic wine in extreme youth. It's fruity and dry, showing great depth, balance and complexity. There's a wealth of deep, unexpressed cherry, cranberry, cola, tobacco, cocoa and sweet oak flavors. Something rich, like duck or a fine steak, will finesse the tannins, but you can also lay this wine down for a good five years, if not longer.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The outstanding, dark ruby-tinged 2003 Pinot Noir Precious Mountain possesses copious quantities of red fruits (pomegranates and red currants) in addition to spice box and apple skins. A high acid profile, minerality, and subtle oak are also found in this tangy, but concentrated 2003. It should drink well for a decade.
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.