Landmark Hop Kiln Estate Pinot Noir 2018
-
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The 2018 Hop Kiln Estate Pinot Noir is a mix of complex, deep flavors beautifully balanced by structural elements that gives an elegance that is the hallmark of Russian River Pinot Noirs.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
With sweet notes of pomegranate molasses over salty mineral tannins, this wine offers a playful harmony in its flavors, ending clean, without any excess weight. It’s a juicy pinot that could stand up to fire-grilled pork riblets.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This is a sultry, brooding red wine, exuberant in black cherry, black tea, forest floor and rose petal. With a supple backbone of integrated tannin and toasted oak, it reaches a velvety finish of cola that accentuates its full-bodied style and enduring richness.
Other Vintages
2019-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Tasting
Panel
-
Jeb
Dunnuck
- Decanter
-
Wine
Spectator -
Jeb
Dunnuck -
Wine
Enthusiast
While the Russian River Valley is a large appellation with multiple climate zones and soil types, it is best known for cool-climate varieties, with Pinot Noir as the most celebrated. The grapes benefit from a reliable late afternoon flow of Pacific Ocean fog through the Petaluma Gap and along the Russian River Valley that ensures slow and steady ripening and the preservation of grape acidity. Today many of California’s most highly regarded Pinot Noir vineyards are in the Russian River Valley, along with its sub-appellation, Green Valley.
Historically Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs had bright red fruit and delicate earthy, mineral notes. But changes in viticultural and winemaking practices have led to stylistic changes in some of the region’s wines. Adjustments to canopy management, among other techniques, have resulted in riper fruit and bolder wines as well. These show flavors of black cherry, blackberry, cola, spice and darker, loamy earth tones, accenting traditional Pinot Noir notes of strawberry, raspberry and light cherry.