Furthermore Gap's Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir 2012
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Furthermore Pinot Noir is obsessively focused on making amazing pinot noir. By concentrating on single vineyard releases from premier growing regions in California, they produce world-class Pinots that demonstrate the diversity of this enchanting varietal. Their philosophy is that low-impact hand crafted small batch production allow the vineyards to speak for themselves. Friends and business partners since the early 90s, Bob Zeches and Chad Richard have always shared a love of Pinot Noir, particularly from California and Oregon. In 2006 when the opportunity arose, they created their first two barrels of wine – about 50 cases of Pinot Noir. Their mission was to conduct a long-term study of how Pinot Noir diversely expresses itself throughout California, and today, they’ve grown to making wines from vineyards up and down the California Coast as far south as the Santa Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County and as far north as the Yorkville Highlands in Mendocino County. In 2019, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay virtuoso Ross Cobb joined the team as head winemaker bringing his 20+ years of notable winemaking experience working at great wineries including Williams Selyem, Flowers and his family winery, Cobb Wines. His addition has greatly elevated the already exceptional wine program. Approaching his work with an extreme dedication to craft, in both viticulture and winemaking, Ross has earned a reputation as a Pinot Noir specialist, producing benchmark single-vineyard wines. In the winery, Ross applies traditional techniques and a gentle hand to capture the personality of each vineyard, while emphasizing quality and complexity at every stage of winemaking.
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.