2014 Sojourn Cellars Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 750 ml

94pt Sojourn Pinot Noir: Outpointing Kosta Browne

It’s called cellartracker.com. If you haven’t visited the site, it’s worth a look. Conceived by ex-Microsofter Eric Levine, CellarTracker now claims to catalog over 60 million bottles, hundreds of thousands of which have been reviewed by site members. To the casual wine consumer, CellarTracker may seem daunting or too “geeked out.” But maybe that’s why we find Levine’s brainchild so intriguing.

Over the last few years, when searching out new boutique wineries on the coast, CellarTracker has become one of our secret weapons. We like to run queries on CellarTracker, looking to discover new wineries that we’d somehow overlooked. A year ago, we did just that. We refined the search filters, curious as to which California Pinot Noir-maker had earned the highest aggregate ratings from CellarTracker members. The #2 finisher — Kosta Browne — came as no surprise. But as to the top dog, the winery was a complete mystery. A month later, Sojourn wouldn’t be a mystery any longer.

Founded on a shoestring in 2001, Craig Haserot and Erich Bradley’s Sojourn has put out a bevy of top-rated single-vineyard Pinot Noirs from hand-selected rows at Sangiacomo, Rodgers Creek, and Gap’s Crown vineyards. But even as Parker, Tanzer, and The Pinot Report dropped 92- to 96-point bombs on Sojourn’s black raspberry-infused Pinot Noirs, we’d never seen a bottle on an N.Y.C. retail shelf. It would require two months of needling for Craig to finally gave us an audience at 141 E. Napa Street. Once there, we’d learn why Sojourn had outpointed every Pinot Noir producer in America on CellarTracker … including Kosta Browne.

“We’re small, and we want to stay small. But if you run the numbers, there’s no way to make just 3,000 cases of Pinot Noir from the greatest vineyards on the coast if you have to run around the country selling them to wholesalers and retailers. So we went to school on Kosta Browne. To a great extent, we have those guys to thank for our success.”

Following the KB playbook to a T, Bradley went shopping for vineyard sites. He’d spare no cost, locking into hand-selected Sonoma Coast rows from Sangiacomo, Rodgers Creek, and fabled Gap’s Crown. Yields at each site are tiny, carrying price tags of $4,000-$6,000 per ton.

Bradley’s cellar protocol, so clearly expressed in each of the lusciously suave, high-toned, wild raspberry Pinot Noirs from the great 2014 vintage, is strictly non-interventionist. The press is gentle, as are the punchdowns. Once in small French barrels, the wine is barely touched. Racked just before bottling, without fining or filtration, Bradley’s Pinot Noirs are beautifully delineated — a combination of juicy fruit purity, silken texture, and sneaky acid backbone.

Drawn from four of the most meticulously farmed, cold-climate Pinot Noir vineyards on the Sonoma Coast — Sangiacomo, Gap’s Crown, Rodgers Creek, and Riddle — the 2014 Sojourn Pinot Noir was 100% destemmed, vinified in 50% new French cooperage, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Brilliant ruby in color, with piercing aromas of black cherry and red raspberry, tinged with new-wood vanilla. Rich, juicy, and wild-berry primary on the attack, then filling out with air. Packed with fine layers of red berry preserves, the texture is lush and sleek, the finish still firm and finely muscled. 14.4% alcohol, but with firm acids and a riveting pH of 3.59.

PinotReport came in at 94 points. $43, if you can find it locally. Just $34 today — oh-so-quietly on WineAccess. 720 bottles are up for grabs.