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Pinot Noir 'Director's Cut' 2008, FF Coppola, Sonoma Coast

Appellation : Sonoma Coast

Year : 2008

Country : USA

Region : Californie

Sub-region : Sonoma Coast

Grape Variety : Pinot Noir

Category : Red

Description :
Tasting Notes
Grown in the Sonoma Coast region, the methods we use for crafting Pinot Noir include early morning crush and a cold soak period to stabilize color. Open-top fermentation helps us achieve a plush, silky texture, which accentuates the tantalizing flavors of crushed cranberries, cherry, strawberry, allspice, clove and vanilla.

Viticultural Notes
The Sonoma Coast encompasses the entire Sonoma County coastline, which extends from the Carneros appellation in the south to the Russian River Valley appellation in the northeast. Because its climate is strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean,temperatures remain relatively cool throughout the growing season and rarely exceed 80 degrees. Yet, despite the cooler weather, the appellation receives more than enough hours of sunlight to allow Pinot Noir grapes to reach optimum ripeness each vintage.We source our fruit from several distinctive vineyards in sub-appellations renowned for producing superior Pinot Noir,and work with our growers to cultivate low yields so that our fruit will posses greater levels of concentration.

In 2007, the unusually dry winter segued into a warm,dry spring season.Lack of precipitation reducedthe crop size and led to smaller than normal berries, which is always a precursor to high-quality fruit. Because there were no substantial heat spikes, the season progressed slowly to allow the grapes to ripen over a longer period of time. In fact, the harvest itself lasted for several weeks because goodweather allowed for leisurely picking. As a result, we picked only small lots of fruit each day based onwhich rows showed the exact ripeness and phenolic development we were looking for. In the end, weachieved tremendously concentrated fruit, which reveals a good deal of site-specific personality.

Wine Making Notes
Aside from the fact Pinot Noir has a delicate nature and is therefore tricky to work with, we are careful to extract as much color as possible from the grapes without accumulating too much tannin. In the cellar, we place whole clusters of fruit into open-top fermenters and punch down several times a day. The must is then pressed and placed into small barrels where it matures for nearly a year, undergoing racking throughout its development. Our 2007 Pinot Noir shows rich, seductive flavors and a velvety texture. It offers pure impressions of strawberries, raspberries and cherries as well as a hint of lavender and fragrant notes of clove and sandalwood.