If you haven't heard about the spectacular wines Tim Mondavi's sons, Carlo and Dante are making from Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, you need to get to know them now. Actually, they make such limited quantities there won't be enough bottles to go around so we can only hope for a higher allocation of future vintages.
Like their father, these brothers have a light touch when it comes to winemaking and show their respect for the origins and terroir of their fruit by not over extracting or loading the wines up with too much new oak. Case in point, this 2022 'Royal St. Robert Cuvee' was aged for 10 months in all neutral French oak barrels. They named the wine in honor of their famous grandfather who essentially put Napa Valley on the wine map and to whom we all owe so much for helping to develop world wide demand of California wines. Carlo and Dante share their thoughts about this cuvee by explaining 'this bottling is a selection of our best barrels giving a window into the cool, rugged westerly hills of the Sonoma Coast. Aromas of fresh cut wild strawberries and rose petals from our Occidental site married with dark Bing cherries and hibiscus flowers fade to a sweet resin, white tea, thyme, forest floor and crushed rock." It is a wine about which the original Mr. Mondavi would most definitely be proud.