Saxon Brown Sangiacomo Roberts Road Vineyard Pinot Noir 2012
-
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Simply delicious, this smells like plump red cherries, tastes generously fruity and feels rich in texture. A spicy cinnamon aroma comes up on the second sniff, and the flavors add black cherry and cedar. The mouthfeel is rather soft, as the acid and tannins are moderate, and the body is full but not heavy.
Jeff launched Saxon Brown to focus on small single vineyard botttlings reflecting his preference for elegantly structured, well balanced and age worthy wines. Over time, Jeff expanded Saxon Brown’s vineyard-focus with small offerings from both established and emerging vineyard sites.
The Sonoma Coast AVA is large in area but, not counting overlapping regions like Russian River Valley, only has a few thousand acres of grapevines—and it’s no wonder. Much of the region is rugged and not easily accessible. Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean’s fog and cool breezes limits the varieties that can be cultivated, but it proves to be an ideal environment for high quality Pinot Noir.
Since fog is a frequent fact of life here, as are heavy marine layers that sometimes bring rain, the best vineyards are wisely planted above the fog line, on picturesque ridges that capture enough sun to provide even ripening. That, with the overnight drop in temperature that reliably preserves acidity, results in fine expressions of Pinot Noir that often receive tremendous critic and consumer praise alike, and are often in high demand.