2021 Martin Ray Pinot Noir Putnam Vineyard Sonoma Coast 750 ml

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 towards 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 towards truly exceptional Pinot Noir—there’s no middle ground. Producers either have to go big, or go home. 

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. The uncompromising quality in the glass is the spirit in which Martin Ray—a pioneer of California viticulture alongside legends like Donn Chappellet and Robert Mondavi—founded his winery in the 1940s, and it continues in his name today. 

Ray wanted to craft wines to rival the best of Europe, when most would have found that notion laughable. He cut yields and refused to irrigate in the vineyard, and he was even stricter in the cellar, sometimes holding wines back a decade until he felt they were ready to go to market. That dedication to quality started a legacy that continues with 97-point gems like this one.