Tasting Notes
This rich, harmonious Pinot Noir, a cuvee of 12 clones, comes from our estate vineyard on the rugged Sonoma Coast. The wine reveals beautiful garnet and deep violet hues in the glass, and opens with delicate floral notes of violets and rose petals. The aromas evolve into bright red fruit expression of raspberry, strawberry and cherry, accented with complex hints of vanilla, forest floor and freshly peeled bark. The red fruit intensity carries over onto an ample, juicy palate, with balanced acids, firm tannins, and an intriguing slate minerality on the lingering finish. This elegant, focused wine will continue to develop complexity in the bottle over the next 10 years.
Winemaking Notes
We hand-picked each block and delivered firm, cool clusters to the winery before sunrise. We then hand-sorted and de-stemmed the fruit before transferring to tank, where five to seven days of cold maceration preceded more than two weeks of 100% native yeast fermentation. The fruit was then gently pressed, and its free-run juice was transferred to 49% new French oak at medium toast levels from cooperages including François Frères, Rousseau, Remond and Latour for 13 months of aging.
Vintage Notes
We farm each of the 30 blocks of our Wayfarer Vineyard individually to tailor the shoot positioning and leafing vine by vine, and clone by clone. Such fine-tuned farming is critical to success on the extreme Sonoma Coast, with its varying elevations and exposures – east facing, west facing, north side, and south side. By the end of the growing season we have typically visited each vine a dozen times.
This meticulous attention pays off in vintages like 2015, when we experienced our third consecutive year of draught conditions. Unseasonably warm weather in February and March gave us budbreak eight days earlier than average, and we were lucky not to have experienced any frost. Sunny days in April led into a cool, cloudy May, which extended bloom period and reduced the number of berries in each cluster. Summer turned warm, for optimum ripening, and when a heat wave hit in mid-August all our vines came through in fine form.
Blocks Map
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26A, 26B, 30Clones
37, Pommard 5, 383, Bacigalupi Old Wente, 667, Wayfarer, Hyde, 777, 115, Swan, Pommard 4, Hirsch
Virginie Boone, Wine Enthusiast, July 2018
Even in its youth this wine packs a punch and delivers unbelievable beauty, opening in aromas of perfume and game. Seductive, supple and spicy, it is undoubtedly full figured and hauntingly complex, with layers of dark cherry, charcuterie, sea breeze and forest floor. The tannins are firm yet polished, intense yet behaved. The salty, briny, beguiling minerality is what lingers longest on the finish.
