Gorgeous California Coastal Pinot
- 92 pts James Suckling92 pts JS
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2020 Angeline Pinot Noir Reserve Mendocino County 750 ml
- Curated by unrivaled experts
- Choose your delivery date
- Temperature controlled shipping options
- Get credited back if a wine fails to impress
The Pinot Noir that Scooped Sonoma
Angeline is based in Sonoma County, which is chock full of Pinot Noir vineyards that keep winemakers stocked with first-class fruit. But the #1 wine in the Angeline tasting room doesn’t come from Sonoma—it comes from up the coast in Mendocino County.
North of wine-rich Sonoma County and below Oregon-like Humboldt County, dramatic Mendocino is dotted with rustic towns like Boonville, Hopville, and Laytonville. The area has long been better known to brewers and beer fans than wine-lovers, but all that has changed—and it’s largely because of its stellar Pinot Noir.
One sip of the 2020 Angeline and you’ll understand why the area deserves respect equal to any other Pinot Noir region in the Golden State. For this bottling, proprietor Courtney Benham and his team leaned heavily on hillside vineyard plots—spots where Pinot Noir vines soak up the sun’s rays after the chilly morning fog pulls away, priming the grapes for lithe concentration. The deep, mineral-rich alluvial soils serve as the staging ground for grapes full of intensity.
The 2020 vintage, with its fluctuating temperatures and shorter hang times, limited yields, increasing competition for fruit from the best plots. It also made for a crop of lively, light-footed Pinot, without a trace of high-alcohol heaviness. This bottle shows a gorgeous ruby-violet hue, with a nose centered around plush berries, plums, and Bing cherries. The voluminous, buoyant palate and fine, velvety tannins befit a wine that definitely belongs in California’s Pinot Noir big leagues.