2021 Vivier Wines Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast 750 ml

SingleThread is one of this planet’s most revered restaurants: The Sonoma County destination is on S. Pellegrino’s The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and it’s held three MICHELIN stars since 2019. 

Needless to say, it also has the world’s finest wines at its fingertips—and Stéphane Vivier’s outstanding Sonoma Coast bottling is SingleThread’s house-pour Pinot Noir.  

Vivier is one of Northern California’s true Pinot superstars: He was tapped by Aubert de Villaine of Burgundy’s iconic Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to head up his personal California outpost, Hyde de Villaine. Over his career, Vivier has built up such cachet that he now has access to some of the most prestigious vineyards in Sonoma County.

Wine Access members went wild for the last vintage of the Vivier Sonoma Coast we offered, buying out our allocation and calling it “an absolutely fascinating wine” and “a must buy for any Pinot fan.” The 2021—sourced primarily from the Flocchini Vineyard in the highly sought-after Petaluma Gap AVA—is multilayered, vivacious, and refined, a first-class Pinot that’s drinking beautifully now but will cellar for close to another decade. 

In 2021, Vivier was blessed with ideal weather. The vines had finally adapted to the accumulated stress of several consecutive drought years, and they responded by self-regulating their yields, meaning that quantities were extremely small. Summer was warm and so was fall, ushering the grapes to perfect ripeness and allowing Vivier to create a wine that matched his trademark vibrancy with luscious fruit. Aged in seasoned French oak, this bottling is perfectly spiced, beautifully balanced—the kind of wine for which Pinot lovers don’t mind paying a mint.