2023 Martin Ray Pinot Noir Putnam Vineyard West Sonoma Coast 750 ml

The extreme Sonoma Coast is a dramatic place—and the conditions that produce exceptional Pinot Noir there also make it expensive to farm. With the work required in the vineyard, producers there have to aim every decision toward truly exceptional bottles—there’s no middle ground: Go big or go home. 

Martin Ray, one of our members’ all-time favorite wineries, has hit a HUGE bullseye with their 2023 Martin Ray Pinot Noir Putnam Vineyard. Grown on a primo site just six miles from the Pacific, it delivers all the precise red fruit and sea-sprayed character of what’s known as the True Sonoma Coast, where Sonoma royalty like Kosta Browne, Aubert, and Williams Selyem craft triple-digit-priced Pinots.  

Putnam Vineyard is in the heart of the true Sonoma Coast—just six miles from the Pacific Ocean, just south of Annapolis. For lovers of dramatic Pinot Noir, the mixture of cool climate and prized Goldridge soils doesn’t get any better.

But the extreme conditions that produce exceptional Pinot from the site also makes it expensive to farm. The area is cooler and wetter than farther inland, so vineyard management is more intensive, requiring a sharper eye toward spotting disease early and more proactive canopy management. Cooler weather during flowering means that yields are tiny—so that extra labor works an even smaller crop.

That’s largely why the area is the province of triple-digit-priced Pinot. With the work required in the field, you have to aim every decision toward truly exceptional Pinot Noir—the kind for which collectors don’t mind shelling out. 

But Martin Ray, led by 100-point winemaking legend Keith Emerson, manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat, delivering quality worthy of their neighborhood at a price that’s half their peers. Martin Ray wanted to craft Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to rival the best of Europe, when most would have found that notion laughable. That dedication to quality landed Martin Ray wines in the White House under two administrations and started a legacy that continues with 95-point gems like this one. Comprising clones 828 and 667, aged nine months in 25% new French oak, it’s a phenomenal example of the True Sonoma Coast.