2018 Star Treatment Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast Sonoma County 750 ml

We deal with A-list wines all the time, but when our Sonoma-legend source called with an offer to sell us their esteemed Pinot Noir, we were still floored. After we heard the price—and did some good-natured negotiating—we could hardly wait until we got off the phone to fist-pump the air. 

These are some of the most in-demand grapes in the business, ones that have inspired multiple 98-point ratings and spurred Pinot lovers to spend hundreds per bottle without thinking twice. Wines that Antonio Galloni has called “off the charts great,” Jeb Dunnuck has hailed as “truly brilliant,” and Robert M. Parker Jr. said “can easily hold their own in blind tastings with the finest red Burgundies.” 

In short, we hit the Pinot lottery, especially considering the source’s notoriously low yields. So, when it arrived, we rolled out the red carpet—tapping a winemaker with impeccable Pinot expertise, giving it the platinum destemming and fermentation package (complete with native yeasts), and a long, kick-your-feet-up rest in a mix of new and used French oak barrels. After all, we were dealing with Sonoma royalty. 

By the end, our eminent grapes were ready to put on the show of a lifetime. This wine hits the glass with elegance and grace, immediately turning heads with black fruit, sandalwood, lavender, and allspice—all perfectly poised and charismatic. It struts across the palate, silken in mouthfeel, dressed to the nines with cherry, exotic spices, and a subtle flash of mint. The level of balance and supple tannins come as no surprise, given its illustrious pedigree.

We don’t throw around words like "royalty" and "legend," but we’ll do so here without any reservations, because our source is 100% deserving. But just like any other endeavor, true oenological brilliance isn’t thrown together on a whim. Their critical-darling wines are groomed for greatness quite literally from the ground up. 

This wine’s five-star upbringing starts in the vineyard. The first time we visited those sun-kissed Sonoma hills with our friend, the legendary estate’s winemaker, he started idly chatting about movies that had catapulted seemingly obscure actors into the realm of superstardom. 

Confused, we checked the alcohol content on the bottles we’d been sharing. “Sure,” we said. “It happens all the time.”

“Actually, it doesn’t,” he said. “We never get to see all the groundwork: the training that actor did, the hundreds of auditions they booked, their theatrical personality from childhood. They’re superstars because of everything leading up to that moment, a perfect confluence of talent, training, personal experiences, and so forth.” He cradled a cluster of Pinot. “From the moment we planted these vines, we set these babies up for success.” 

Absolutely everything our friend’s winery does has a purpose—every decision is carefully considered, from their Grand Cru-pedigree Pinot clones, to the vineyard locations high above the Russian River Valley, to the time of day that they harvest. They’re fastidious about every step of the process and, while we watched them work, we understood how their bottles could garner high-90s ratings with incredible consistency.

The Star Treatment is no different. Like its predecessors, it was raised under a watchful eye, treated to growing techniques that leave nothing to chance, worthy of the same “sold-out” statuses and throngs of adoring fans screaming for more.