2022 Black Kite Cellars Pinot Noir Gap's Crown Sonoma Coast 750 ml

Robert Redford once came into Napa’s iconic Tra Vigne, past a list stacked with cult Napa Cabernets and French icons, chasing a single bottle: Black Kite. He gave it his personal stamp of approval, telling the servers, “This is a wine you have to know, I simply love it.” It’s the kind of endorsement the winery has earned again and again—and a big reason the label has become a Wine Access member favorite.

Black Kite is a small, family-run winery whose reputation rests on site-specific Pinot Noir and Chardonnay of real elegance. Winemaker Jeff Gaffner, who trained under the legendary Richard Arrowood and helped Château St. Jean earn a Wine Spectator Wine of the Year, has guided the wines since 2005. Wine Enthusiast has listed Black Kite among “America’s Best Pinot Noirs,” and our members return to the label again and again, calling it competitive with wines costing several times as much.

This bottling comes from Gap’s Crown, and if the Sonoma Coast had a grand cru system, this would be one of its names. The cold, rocky hillside rises above the Petaluma Gap, a break in the coastal hills that funnels a daily rush of wind and fog off the Pacific. Those conditions slow ripening and preserve a bright seam of acidity, giving Gap’s Crown Pinot its signature mix of intensity and freshness.

The site’s pedigree is hard to overstate. Owned by Bill Price and farmed for a who’s-who that runs from Kosta Browne to Three Sticks, Gary Farrell, and Sojourn, Gap’s Crown supplied the fruit behind Kosta Browne’s 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot—named Wine of the Year by Wine Spectator. Single-vineyard Pinots from this vineyard are coveted, allocated, and rarely inexpensive.

In Gaffner’s hands, the 2022 shows why. It pours a dark ruby, with Bing cherry and red rose lifting from the glass alongside a whisper of vanilla and forest floor. The palate is lush and silky, its red fruit carrying clean through a long, resonant finish—the kind of vivid fruit the winery is fond of calling “cherry pie in a glass.” A warm California vintage suited this cold, fog-raked site beautifully, yielding a Pinot with flesh and freshness in equal measure.

It’s Black Kite from hallowed ground—grown on one of California’s great Pinot sites.