Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A new bottling from the winery. The vineyard is in the Petaluma Gap, a cool area south of the Russian River Valley, toward San Francisco. The vintage was cool, too, so the wine is brisk in acidity and low in alcohol, but it still tastes amazingly ripe and complex. The wine dazzles with waves of black raspberry jam, sweet olive tapenade, sautéed brown mushroom, root beer, moo-shu plum sauce and mocha. If those flavors sound like they don’t go together, just try the wine. It’s seamless and compelling. Drink now–2020.
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Wine & Spirits
This is Williams Seylem's first vintage from Charles and Diana Karen's vineyard in the Petaluma Gap. The foggy, windy site produced a tart, light-bodied pinot with scents of strawberries and raspy strawberry seed flavors. Its gentle structure carries the red fruit in a cherry direction, suited to roast duck.
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.