2019 Heritage Horizontal 4-Pack
For this set, we've selected our Classic and a Cuvée of Chardonnay & Pinot Noir from the highly regarded 2019 vintage. These heritage selections highlight the great care that Lester & Linda Schwartz used in selecting a range of clones that would thrive on the wild Sonoma Coast.
2019 Chardonnay
94 Points - Wine Enthusiast
This lengthy wine from the coastal estate is dark golden in color, with a great mouthfeel of tension and supple tannin. Vibrant flavors of apple, Asian pear and melon give it substance within a light, refined style.
92 Points - Wine Spectator
A refined and open-textured style, with spicy richness to the cream-filled white fruit flavors. Pastry accents midpalate lead to buttery notes on the fresh and engaging finish. Drink now through 2025.
92 Points - Jeb Dunnuck
Next up, the 2019 Chardonnay Fort Ross Vineyard showed beautifully, with a clean, crystalline, yet rich, medium-bodied style that delivers beautiful crushed citrus, lemon, white flower, green almond, and spice-driven aromas and flavors. With plenty of density on the palate, it stays remarkably well-balanced and has a great spine of acidity as well as a clean finish. Relatively tight and holding things close to its vest, it will benefit from a year or two of bottle age, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it still drinking brilliantly at age 10.
★★★★ - The Press Democrat
A chardonnay with great structure and layered flavors. Aromas and flavors of melon, Meyer lemon, hazelnut and a hint of toffee. While weighty, its mineral notes give it lift. Balanced, yet it has a rich note of caramel in its lingering finish. - Peg Melnik, April 2022
★★★★ Restaurant Wine, Ronn Wiegand MS/MW
Full bodied and supple, with subtle, complex flavors (pear, white peach, pineapple, toast, candied lemon, oak), good balance, and a medium long finish. Can develop further.
2019 Mother of Pearl Chardonnay
94 Points - Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Chardonnay Mother Of Pearl is a smaller selection from the Fort Ross Vineyard, which is located in the Fort Ross-Seaview AVA, a smaller appellation on the northern Sonoma Coast. It’s certainly the richest of the Chardonnays from this estate, yet it stays firmly planted in the fresher, more elegant, mineral-laced style of the estate. Beautiful stone fruits, white flowers, toasted brioche, and subtle background oak all give way to a medium-bodied, vibrant, incredibly pure Chardonnay with a good spine of acidity and outstanding length. It’s already drinking nicely, yet I have no doubt this is another impressive Chardonnay from this estate that will evolve for a good 8-10 years.
★★★★+ Restaurant Wine, Ronn Wiegand MS/MW
The Mother of Pearl is an elegant, complex wine of fine quality. It has a clear appearance (not brilliant), and is a richer, somewhat toastier wine, with peach, roasted nut, pineapple, lemon, and oak flavors, and a long finish. Excellent; can be aged a bit.
90 Points - Wine Enthusiast
From the elevated site, this aromatic, floral wine shows great finesse and restraint. It's captivating, offering apricot, Meyer lemon and stone fruit with a measured sense of richness and complexity.
2019 Pinot Noir
94 Points - Jeb Dunnuck
Lots of sous bois, sappy herbs, green flowers, and assorted red and slightly darker berry fruits emerge from the 2019 Pinot Noir Fort Ross Vineyard. A medium-bodied, nicely concentrated, balanced Pinot, this is one of the richer, more concentrated wines in the lineup. I like it today, yet I suspect it will develop additional complexity with another year or two of bottle age, and it should have a long life of 10-12 years, if not more.
"9 Stellar West Coast Pinot Noirs to Drink Right Now" - The Robb Report
For this Pinot Noir winemaker Jeff Pisoni chooses grapes grown in single vineyards less than one mile from the Pacific Ocean. His Fort Ross Vineyard Pinot Noir has aromas and flavors of red cherry and cranberry with a touch of Oolong tea and brown baking spices in the back palate. It has rich mouthfeel with silky tannins and a smooth finish.
2019 The Terraces Pinot Noir
94+ Points - Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Pinot Noir The Terraces is a more ethereal, perfumed, mineral-laced beauty offering gorgeous light red fruits, dried strawberry, crushed stone, and white flower-like aromas and flavors. Playing in the medium-bodied end of the spectrum, it still brings plenty of intensity as well as structure, and while it certainly has up-front charm today, it’s another wine from this estate that will benefit from a year or three of bottle age and have a long life. It’s beautifully done.
★★★★★ Restaurant Wine, Ronn Wiegand MS/MW
The 2019 The Terraces is also an outstanding Pinot Noir: supple, full bodied, and generously flavored (raspberry, red currant, rose petal, black tea, vanilla, oak), it is balanced, very long on the palate, and lightly tannic on the finish. Warrants further aging.