2012 Fort Ross Vineyards Pinot Noir "Symposium" Estate Sonoma Coast 750 ml

The Sonoma Coast “Showstopper”

In 2009, Jeff Pisoni — one of the most critically acclaimed Pinot Noir-makers in California — was dining out at the Ritz-Carlton when he was offered a glass of ruby-red 2007 Fort Ross Pinot Noir. Jeff was blown away by the estate-grown Fort Ross Pinot Noir, noting its “luscious fruit, fine minerality, and crisp acidity.”

Curious to know who was behind this gobsmacker — and how they’d pulled it off — Pisoni tracked down Fort Ross Vineyard & Winery co-founder Lester Schwartz and got him on the phone. Within months, Pisoni was on the payroll; 2009 was his first vintage for Fort Ross.

The partnership has caught the eye of Robert Parker. The Wine Advocate founder raved about their 2012s: “These are impressive Burgundian-style Pinot Noirs that merit serious attention. These are all impressive wines sold at extremely fair prices.”

What lured Pisoni to Fort Ross is the same thing that continues to beguile everyone from Parker to Julie Albin at the San Francisco Chronicle, who called today’s wine a “showstopper with mouthwatering hints of raspberry, plum, peony, white mushroom and forest floor.” Location, location, location.

Perched on steep mountain ridges — up to 1,800 feet in elevation, and less than a mile inland from the Sonoma Coast’s roaring cerulean waves — as close as a California vineyard comes to the pounding Pacific. Coastal fog shrouds vines in the morning, and brisk marine winds cool and cleanse them in the afternoon as bright sunshine helps coax the Pinot Noir grapes into ripening to perfection.

It’s conditions like this that have helped shape the 100-pointers from Peter Michael and stunners from other Fort Ross-Seaview heavyweights such as Pahlmeyer, Martinelli, Hirsch, and Nobles Vineyard. 2012 gave birth to perhaps the finest wines to date in the cool, extreme coastal region.

In one of their finest efforts yet, Pisoni and the Schwartzes have put out a drop-dead, gorgeously aromatic Pinot Noir. “Fresh, pure and delicious,” raved Robert Parker, before pinning on 93 points.

The 2012 Fort Ross Pinot Noir “Symposium” was vinified entirely in French cooperage, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Deep garnet in hue. Gorgeous aromatic profile composed of briary black fruit, cola, and nut, laced with delicate mushroom. Rich, ripe, and juicy, packed with strawberry preserve, menthol, and tobacco leaf. Satiny mouthfeel but with a rich weighty core, plush like a down pillow. This is a Pinot Noir of terrific purity and elegance, a wine that added weight and complexity after two hours in the glass.

93 points from Parker for this “impressive Burgundian-style Pinot Noir ... sold at extremely fair prices.” Better than “extremely fair” is the BEST price in America, and we’ve got it at $36.99 a pop — it doesn’t get any better than this, folks.