Must back from a CA trip that took me to Sojourn, Copain, Williams-Selyem. Wondering how board members would compare these Sonoma pinots to those coming out of the Santa Rita Hills AVA in style, weight, richness, etc . Is there a predominant regional character that you discern?
Sojourn, Copain, and Williams-Selyem source from a number of different AVAs.
which ones did you taste?
Santa Lucia Pinots are, in general, big, high-alcohol, new world examples of the grape. Many Russian River Pinots are quite similar. Of the wineries you mentioned Copain would be the least like that style - at least post-2006. Williams-Selyem is often a bit richer than Copain, and Sojourn another step further, but all are more restrained and balanced than the 15%+ alcohol monstrosities that can be found at other SLH or Russian River wineries.
FWIW, i’ve had a number of SLH, Rosella’s, Pisoni, and Garys’ selections from August West (for example) which were nowhere near the vicinity of “monstrosities”.
vintage, of course, will also make a difference.
Arcadian’s another who’s made a few balanced SLH Pinot’s over the years…
The OP was asking about Sta. Rita Hills before the wires got crossed.
To me with Sonoma, Russian River Valley Pinot often gives more cola and baking spice notes, along with the fig and cherry. Sonoma Coast often gives a lot of earthy, floral, and forest notes, along with a red fruit profile. Both can be lighter or bigger depending on the style- but those are the flavor components I associate.
SRH Pinot often shows more of density, bigger tannins, more earthiness, more minerality, and darker fruit than Sonoma Pinot. When the SRH wines show balance and finesse, that’s when they’re great IMO.
Vintage MIGHT make a difference, but in warm-weather California, winemaker style is usually more important. I never said that all the SLH and Russian River wines were unbalanced overproofed messes - but there certainly are more than a few to be found from there. The same holds true for some in the Sta. Rita Hills, though I have had fewer egregious examples.
August West makes good wines but they are certainly big, rich, and sometimes finish a little hot. I believe Ed Kurtzman typically doesn’t pick his grapes until they reach 27 Brix, which allows for some pretty high alcohol levels.
Getting back to the original question, Sonoma has a much broader range of geographies and styles than any one Central Coast region. Perhaps if you told us what you liked or didn’t like we might be able to help direct you toward similar producers…
I liked best the 2008 W-S Ferrington, as it was elegant but still had a certain richness. The new Sojourn Sangiacomo was great, and I slightly preferred that to Rodger’s Creek but didn’t get a chance to taste Gap’s Crown. My Copain tasting was abbreviated but the Monument Tree I tasted was a bit tight but excellent.
Overall, their basic wines, meant to be drunk younger, I was less impressed by - some nice red fruit and a nice balancing acidity but overall felt a little meh and insipid to me. I like murkier, richer aromatics, a little more tannin and richness, but still good acid. I can’t do the cloyingly sweet of high alcohol wines though. Any ideas what SRH wines I just need to try?
MacArthur’s selection is small but gives an interesting intro to SRH. Maybe not your perfect choices but they range from bigger to more restrained for the area. I saw
A. P. Vin
Samsara
Sandhi
Tantara
There is, of course, the fact that the Santa Rita Hills and Santa Lucia Highlands are 200 miles or so apart.
Not to mention, nowhere near the vicinity of Santa Rita Hills!
As for Copain, despite their winery and tasting room being in Sonoma county, you’ll find their Pinots representative of Anderson Valley, which is in Mendocino.
To the question in the OP, Sonoma is too big a place to make generalizations. Even Sonoma Coast is too big an appellation to do so.
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Mine was not really directed at you Paul, since you were responding to someone else who mentioned SLH, but I could resist hitching onto your “nowhere near the vicinity of…”
I am a big fan of Santa Rita Hills pinot, but I have been struggling to find a way to generalize about them versus Sonoma pinot, and I’m not sure I can come up with something I’m confident saying. Blake Brown is probably the board expert among those not ITB on Santa Rita Hills pinot, so maybe he can chime in.
I can definitely point you to good wines, though. Arcadian Fiddlestix would be near the top of the heirarchy, elegant and as ageworthy as Burgs that cost twice as much. Sea Smoke Southing is excellent in a medium-to-bigger style, particularly if you can let them age 6+ years from the vintage. Au Bon Climat is great in an old-school, long-aging style. Ampelos is great value in a medium-to-leaner style. Cargasacchi is great, also very good value for the dollar. Loring makes great SRH pinots in a rich, ripe style. There are plenty of others.
It’s an underrated area, whose better pinots rival better pinots from Sonoma, I think (though they are fewer in number than Sonoma).
Though I’m in the biz, I do NOT make Pinot, so perhaps I can be more ‘objective’ than others?!?!?!?
Lots of great choices for wonderful SRH pinots, and as others have pointed out, they are made in multiple styles, dependent not only on winemaker but on site. Areas in the eastern portion of the AVA tend to produce lighter, riper styles of pinot - see those coming out of Rio Vista Vyd for example. Those grown on the western side are much cooler, and therefore the wines tend to be darker, earthier, sometimes denser as well (though not always).
There are many great ‘appellation’ wines being produced there at ‘reasonable’ prices (for pinot that is - don’t get me started on pricing of pinots!!!) - try Melville, Sanford, Brewer Clifton, Siduri for more ‘moderately’ priced wines that usually are blends of different vineyards from within the area. Many of these wineries, plus a bunch more, tend to make estate pinots that are higher priced, including Clos Pepe, Kaessler Hawk, Foley, Zotovich, and many others . . .
Happy exploring!!!
James does a head-to-head:
Noah,
SRH is a small AVA within Santa Barbara County. At a guess there is more PN from either Sonoma Coast or RRV than all of SBC.
I’d suggest that you focus on a few producers from the Santa Barbara area and then just see what you like, just as you did with Sonoma.
It is possible that you’ll run in to some heavy PNs from SBC especially from SRH, but in general I’d say that SBC PNs can have more structure and acids and also be less sexy than their counter parts from up North. Some of them age amazingly well delivering even 20 years after the vintage.
There are many good suggestions already. My favs are two old timers that started out about 30 years ago:
Ojai, those used to be easy to get at retail, but these days they sell out fairly quickly from the winery. However, their wines are very fairly priced even at full retail.
ABC, widely distributed. If you can find the 2010 Alexander Knox or Isabella, then I’d highly recommend trying them. Wines are also fairly priced.