2022 Aston Pinot Noir - Sonoma Coast

The 2022 returns this bottling to 100% estate. You can see from the quantities that there wasn’t much to go around from the vineyard, 16 tons from our 12.4-acre Annapolis site. After fermenting several lots individually, we landed on a 3-acre plot of clone 777 as the most generous and drinkable 2022 in the cellar and from that, the Sonoma Coast was created. This generosity is really what separates it from the Estate bottling. Both wines have the savage,  savory leaning personality of this part of the west Sonoma Coast but the Sonoma Coast bottling is far more approachable at this point in its life. The color is a bit lighter, the tannins are sweeter and rounder and there’s less of a brooding, reductive character compared to the Estate. The fruit is very high toned here too concentrating on black cherries and raspberries, orange peel and baking spices. There’s also a white pepper quality that weaves its way into the back of the nose and the palate entry. Both color and palate weight are very medium which keeps the wine refreshing and projects an acidity beyond what its empirical numbers would indicate. The goal here is site character and immediate drinkability which happens to be the greatest attributes of the 2022 vintage and this bottling in particular.