Williams Selyem Coastlands Pinot Noir 2014
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Connoisseurs'
Guide
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
On the nose, black cherry and sous bois, a French term meaning ‘forest floor’, mingle with notes of cinnamon, cedar, and pipe tobacco. Black cherry juice and creamy strawberry flavors, along with a hint of faded rose, lighten up the palate. The superb resolution of tannin makes this full-bodied wine seem almost weightless in the mouth, while flavors reminiscent of Christmas cake spices, and candied orange peel linger on the finish.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Pretty as all get-out, this wine is a floral masterpiece—a study in coastal rose and forest scents with a counterpunch of white pepper that leaves one wanting more. Juicy raspberry, strawberry and tangerine flavors are seasoned in allspice and tobacco, the palate so beautifully delicate yet fully realized in savory complexity and length.
-
Connoisseurs' Guide
Hailing from a particularly cool vineyard in the western reaches of the Sonoma Coast, this mildly floral look at the grape emphasizes brightness and buoyancy over ripeness and extract. It is balanced to firmness and built along comparatively leaner lines with plenty of youthful acidity lifting its slightly tangy, red cherry and plum finish. It is sleek Pinot that wants drinking with somewhat lighter fare and will round into top form with a couple years of additional age.
Other Vintages
2018-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine &
Spirits
-
Robert
Parker -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Robert
Parker
-
Robert
Parker
-
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine &
Spirits
-
Wine
Spectator
-
Robert
Parker
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine &
Spirits
-
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
-
Wine
Spectator
Williams Selyem Winery began as a simple dream of two friends, Ed Selyem and Burt Williams, who pursued weekend winemaking as a hobby in 1979 in a garage in Forestville, California, and made their first commercial vintage in 1981. In less than two decades, Burt and Ed created a cult-status winery of international acclaim. Together they set a new standard for Pinot Noir winemaking in the United States, aligning Sonoma County's Russian River Valley in the firmament of the best winegrowing regions of the world. Today John and Kathe Dyson, who purchased the winery from Burt and Ed in 1998, carry on the passion for Pinot Noir winemaking without compromise. As for the wines... they just keep getting better and better.
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.