Ernest Vineyards The Wrangler Pinot Noir 2017
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James
Suckling
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Deep red and purple tones reveal ripe blackberries and black plums with hints of wild sage, thyme, and damp earth. An elegant oak frame contains concentrated flavors of black fruits, plum skin, and spicy herbs, an unbashful and powerful expression of Pinot Noir.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has brambly, rich and ripe red-cherry aromas with a fresh strawberry edge that really pops. The palate is sappy and carries plenty of brightly lit berry flavor. Nicely defined tannins. Drink or hold.
Other Vintages
2018- Vinous
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Robert
Parker
Ernest Vineyards has partnered to build one of the most sophisticated production facilities in Wine Country today. Located in northern Sonoma County, this winery represents the next phase for crush facilities—a facility for like-minded small producers to have access to the absolute best in production equipment combined with tasting rooms and event space for their guests. Opened in 2017, they call it Grand Cru.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
A vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.