2014 Wayfarer Pinot Noir

Tasting Notes

Our Golden Mean Pinot Noir celebrates a union between the Swan clone, with its elegance and enticing perfume, and the Pommard clone, with its earthy aromatics and powerful structure. This ruby-hued wine begins with delicate floral notes that lead into bright red fruit aromas with hints of powdered cocoa and the suggestion of an ocean breeze. On the palate, fresh strawberry and cherry characters are supported by soft tannins and well-structured slate minerality. Balanced acidity makes this an easy food pairing wine—it’s ready to enjoy upon release, and will age beautifully for another 10-15 years.

Winemaking Notes

In the pre-dawn hours, the fruit was hand-picked and hand-sorted with 14% reserved for whole-cluster fermentation. We de-stemmed and hand-sorted again, before transferring the berries to tank where five to seven days of cold maceration preceded more than two weeks of 100% native yeast fermentation. The fruit was then gently pressed, its free-run juice was transferred to 55% new French oak barrels for 15 months of aging.

Vintage Notes

The 2014 season started as one of the earliest on record, well before the threats of late winter frosts had passed. Fortunately, the tender buds and shoots escaped without damage and we relaxed into an exceptionally nice spring and cool summer. The gentle pace of the growing season gave us time for meticulous canopy management; we farm each of our 30 blocks individually to tailor the shoot positioning and leafing vine by vine, and clone by clone. Such fine-tuned farming is critical to success on the extreme Sonoma Coast, particularly for our vineyard with its great diversity of clones planted at varying elevations and exposures – east facing, west facing, north side, and south side. By the end of the growing season we have typically visited each vine a dozen times.

Our 2014 wines exhibit a pronounced minerality, due in part to our Goldridge soil and sandstone mother rock, as well as cold spells throughout the year. These wines are very open and generous right out of the bottle, with soft tannins, great acidity, and a slightly higher pH than previous vintages.

Blocks Map

5, 20, 22, 24, 26a

Clones

Pommard 4, Pommard 5, Swan

Critics

97 Points

Virginie Boone, Wine Enthusiast, September 2016

Dark, brooding cinnamon and fleshy black plum provide an exciting, complex counterpoint to the rakish earthiness and exotic Asian spice going on in this full-bodied, explosively compelling wine, its minerality lingering. It’s young and still tightly coiled, with lingering minerality; let it open to enjoy now, but it would show best after some time, so cellar through 2024.

94 Points

Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Advocate, October 31, 2017

The Golden Mean is made exclusively from Pommard and Swan clones. Medium to deep ruby-purple, the 2014 Pinot Noir Golden Mean has a lovely floral nose of violets and roses over a core of red cherries and pomegranate with hints of cinnamon stick and toast. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is packed with perfumed red berry flavors with a solid frame of chewy tannins and seamless freshness, finishing on a spicy note.

93 Points

Doug Wilder, Purely Domestic Wine Report, May, 2016

2014 Pinot Noir, Golden Mean offers a densely packed nose of blackberry, date and fig with underlying cedar, flint and anise. The palate is densely packed yet supple in the core. Fresh and lively, spice and mint in the well-formed polished fruit finish. Drink 2016 - 2023.