Winemaker Notes
Strawberry and cherry notes mix with subtle notes of allspice and clove. The palate offers softer tannins with hints of black tea and seamless acidity. Sourced from our outstanding vineyards in the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast AVAs, the Sonoma County always represents an outstanding value. Something to enjoy on the early side as you wait for the vineyard designates to mature.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an outstanding showcase for the vintage, showing depth and concentration mixed with elegance. Dried herb, black tea, turned earth and crushed rock accent a medium-bodied core of dark cherry, blueberry and currant, with rounded tannins.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lots of ripe cherries and mulberries as well as an almost blue fruit quality all emerge from the 2019 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast. Medium-bodied and super elegant, this seamless Pinot Noir shines on all accounts. It has a kiss of background oak to integrate, yet the balance is spot on, its tannins are ripe and polished, and it's just a gorgeous appellation Pinot Noir that readers should snatch up.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium ruby, the 2019 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast offers spicy black fruits on the nose with savory and earthy undertones. The palate is bright and spicy with a finely grained texture and long, uplifted finish.
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Wine Spectator
Shows an elegant spiciness and structured dried red cherry and berry flavors that are backed by rich acidity. Burnished finish has notes of underbrush that linger with svelte savoriness. Drink now through 2025.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2019 William Selyem Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir is a beautiful and complete wine. TASTING NOTES: This wine shines with its aromas of ripe, red, and black fruit, as well as an accent of oak. Pair it with a grilled, well-marbled ribeye. (Tasted: January 15, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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Connoisseurs' Guide
Very much following the lead of Williams Selyem’s 2018 Sonoma Coast bottling, this is again a very fruit forward offering that sports the lovely, very supple, near velvety palatal feel of a well-crafted Pinot Noir. If picking one of the winery’s current lot for drinking in the relative near term, this is the one that gets our vote, albeit not about to fade away any time soon. It is, in short, very delectable stuff.
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.