There is no season for Pinot Noir.
Because it marries well with the bounty of every season, you will find it on the dining tables of those-in-the-know throughout the year. In the coldest months we open bottles with duck confit, pork shoulder, and pretty much anything out of the slow-cooker. During the spring/summer, Sara makes an olive oil poached tuna that cries out for best Pinot Noirs.
We bottle two appellation Pinot Noirs from the premier North Coast AVAs for this grape. One from a pair of fog-choked Sonoma Coast ranches, the other from an all-star roster of Anderson Valley sites.
2019 Laguna, Sonoma Coast
The longer we have been enjoying wine, the more we seem to gravitate toward razor-sharp whites and tartly-fruited reds. In a classical sense, it’s the sharp and tart notes in wine that make our mouths water calling for that next bite of food. Our Laguna, Pinot Noir from the ocean-cooled Sonoma Coast fits this bill. A blend of two vineyards in the lee of the fog-catching Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed–the wine delivers on the promise of the neighborhood. You don’t come here looking for fruit-bombs. You come here for Pinot bespoke of freshly-picked coastal berries and damp forest floor. From the elongated, universally celebrated 2019 vintage, this California wine provides enough cranberry, rhubarb, and pomegranate notes to please even your jaded Williamsburg-dwelling cousin.
2019 La Selva, Anderson Valley
Our mailing list members have caught on to this little gem—an appellation Pinot Noir that drinks like a designate. The first couple of vintages went exclusively to Michelin-starred restaurants The Progress (S.F.) and Harbor House (Mendocino), who paired the wine with their oft-foraged coastal cuisine. The 2017 bottling caused a bit of stir, scoring 95 pts. and the highest rating of the year for U.S. Pinot Noir in Wine & Spirits Magazine. The 2019 La Selva keeps the party going by “borrowing” a barrel from each of our premier Anderson Valley holdings: esteemed Kiser and Abel vineyards in the cooler deep end of the valley (which contribute a black-fruited intensity to the wine) as well as Edmeades Vineyard, (widely considered the sweet spot of the mid-valley and responsible for high octave red fruit intensity–is that hibiscus?). The resulting wine is classic Anderson Valley—a high grip Pinot that telegraphs the characteristics of place—the purple flowers, the black raspberries and alpine strawberries, the pine sap.