Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Inviting aromas of strawberry and orange are seasoned in more brooding components of forest floor, cardamom and oak in this coastal wine. Broad tannin's provide grip and grit to the generous, weighty texture. This will cellar well and be best from 2025– 2028. Cellar Selection
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pale to medium ruby, the 2018 Pinot Noir Precious Mountain Vineyard slowly opens to gentle scents of dust, tangerine, dried rose petals and saline with a core of perfumed red and black berry fruit. Light to medium-bodied, the palate is silky and lifted with saline-laced fruits, grainy, seamlessly fresh and finishing ethereal.
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.