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Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Estate

Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Estate Wine Details
Price: $45.00 per bottle

Description: This is our first offering of Pinot Noir from anywhere other than our own estate. We will be offering a Sonoma Coast bottling every year for the foreseeable future sourced from a select cast of vineyards. Our first wine is an eight barrel bottling from a few small, young vineyards within sight of the Pacific Ocean. Sonoma Coast as an appellation has supported wine grapes for quite some time, but in very limited quantities. Because of this, we didn't quite know what to expect in terms of aromatic and flavor profile. Tasting the now bottled wine, we are pleased to find some classic cool weather elements: vibrant garnet color, floral nose, minty/peppery palate and good acidity. Jeff Ames, our assistant winemaker, remarked that the wine reminded him of the '96 Williams-Selyem "Hirsch Vineyard" which to us is a supreme compliment.

Varietal Definition
Pinot Noir:
The name is derived from the French words for ‘pine’ and ‘black’ alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France. It is widely considered to produce some of the finest wines in the world, but is a difficult variety to cultivate and transform into wine. By volume most Pinot Noir in America is grown in California with Oregon coming in second. Other regions are Washington State and New York.During 2004 and the beginning of 2005, Pinot Noir became considerably more popular amongst consumers in the United States, possibly because of the movie Sideways. Being lighter in style, it has benefited from a trend toward more restrained, less alcoholic wines. It is the delicate, subtle, complex and elegant nature of this wine that encourages growers and winemakers to cultivate this difficult grape. Robert Parker has described Pinot Noir: "When it's great, Pinot Noir produces the most complex, hedonistic, and remarkably thrilling red wine in the world."


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