Fort Ross Vineyard Symposium Pinot Noir 2011
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Parker
Robert -
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2011 Pinot Noir Symposium Fort Ross Vineyard is a smaller cuvée made from 97% Pinot Noir blended with 3% Pinotage, which makes sense given the owners are from South Africa. This sees about 50% new French oak and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. This is spectacular Pinot Noir, with notes of forest floor, Asian soy and plum sauce, mulberry, black cherry and some gamey, smokey notes. The wine is ripe, medium to full-bodied and beautifully made. The alcohol is a very modest 13%. There were 548 cases of this wine, which should age nicely for 10-12 years or so.
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Wine Enthusiast
Estate-grown and produced, with the added expertise of winemaker Jeff Pisoni, this is an oaky, stemmy and earthy coastal wine, silky and seamless in red cherry, pomegranate, nutmeg and brambly black tea. Exotic, slightly savory and well-restrained, it includes 3% Pinotage, another specialty of the producer.
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Nestled on a sunny coastal ridge, overlooking the Pacific Ocean a mile below, Fort Ross'"True Sonoma Coast" vineyard is one of the closest, if not the closest, to the ocean in all of California. From the vineyard you can see the breaking surf and the misty silhouettes of Bodega Head and Pt. Reyes far below. The vineyard's high elevation above the coastal fog and its proximity to the ocean provide a gentle, sunny and temperate climate that has proved to be very favorable for the slow and even ripening of Burgundian varietals.
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.”
On the far western edge of the larger Sonoma Coast appellation, the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA hugs right up against the Pacific coast. Vineyards, planted at rugged elevations between 920 to 1,800 feet, occupy only two percent of the total land in the AVA. Fort Ross-Seaview growers believe that the region boasts an ideal mix of sunshine, cool air and beneficial stress for producing high quality Chardonnay and Pinot noir.