In the September 30th issue of Wine Spectator Magazine, the cover story is on the best ever California Pinot Noir. The surge in quality for the over the last decade in California is a reflection of so many new wineries as well as emerging growing regions such as Anderson Valley, Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Rita Hills. The 2007 vintage has been so well received due to the purity of ripe fruit flavors, finesse and complexity in aromatics. The flavor profile of many of the 2007 vintage display a range of flavors from wilted rose to wild raspberry, cherry and blueberry to more mineral and spice. Everything just fell into place with this vintage and the two most important factors were the perfect weather and low yields. The weather wasn't too hot and not too cold which allowed us to get the fruit as ripe as we wanted without pushing the sugar levels too high. The article claims that the 2008 vintage won't be nearly as good due to the frost damaged vineyards which is a benefit to how we make wine at Tobacco Road Cellars. One of our properties in the Russian River Valley was hit pretty hard by frost in the 2008 vintage and our vigorous vineyard management and planning saved our Pinot Noir that year by moving the entire production to three vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands. Our wines are tasting truly amazing in barrel right now and we believe will stand up quite nicely to the 2007 Russian River Pinot Noir that we made.
James Laube of Spectator makes a point to say that Sonoma is the place to begin when looking at what California Pinot Noir is all about, especially the Russian River Valley. One of his highly rated Pinot Noirs comes from Kosta Browne and Amber Ridge Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. He scored the wine an impressive 94 points and priced at $72. This makes us extremely happy to know that we are delivering mid 90's scoring wines for $49 to our customers and restaurants. Most recently the Pinot Noir has been picked up by such restaurants as Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse in Charlotte, NC and Dolce Vita Wine Shop in Greenville, NC. We greatly appreciate the continued support and look forward to continuing to make world class wine for each of you in the future.
Give us a call at the winery, 888.770.3635 if you would like to know more about our 2007 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley or any of our wines.
