2024 Petaluma Gap Pinot Noir

Lifted expression with a nose of blackberry, dried cherry, spiced cranberry and crushed violets. The palate offers raspberry fruit leather with notes of maple and spice cake, supported by fine tannins and a long, juicy finish. LL (12/25)

A cool spring followed by a mild summer provided ideal ripening conditions for this Petaluma Gap vineyard. Destemmed but left as whole berries, the grapes fermented to dryness in eleven days. The wine was then aged in barrel for twelve months. Toasty oak and dark cherry fruit make this pinot noir immediately enjoyable. It will gain complexity and fully develop over the next six to seven years. JO (10/25)

For our first exploration of the Petaluma Gap AVA we looked to the Nightwing Vineyard; which was developed in 2017 and planted the following year as a mosaic of 35 blocks featuring 44 acres of pinot noir and 30 acres of chardonnay. The grapes benefit from Western exposure, drinking in the sun and cooling breeze of the Pacific Ocean. The vineyard is CSWA Certified – Certified California Sustainable and farmed using some of our favorite regenerative techniques, like alternate row cover crops and tilling between vines.

Rainfall: 40 inches (above normal)
Bloom: Mid-May
Weather: Above average rainfall with three big storms which gave us the majority of the winter rain. Fairly mild spring followed by a heat spell that started in June and went through harvest.

Harvest Dates: 12 and 20 September
Grapes: Average Brix 23.9˚
TA: 5.5 g/L
pH: 3.63
Fermentation: Grapes destemmed and pumped over a floating cap twice daily.
Barrels: 50% American oak and 50% French oak barrels (20% new, 5% one year old, 20% two years old, 15% three years old, and 40% five-plus years old).
Aging: Twelve months in barrel

Hand-harvested grapes fermented on the indigenous yeast, followed by full malolactic on the naturally occurring malolactic bacteria; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35 ppm at crush, 166 ppm over the course of aging); pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.

See all food pairing recipes we have created specifically for this wine.