Country: US
Region: Sonoma Coast
Grape: 100% Pinot Noir
2000 cases produced
JS 97-98, JD 96, WS 95, VN 94, RP 95
From the producer:
As fourth generation winemakers and farmers, Carlo and Dante Mondavi attribute a great deal of what they have learned to their grandfather Robert and father Tim, both whom influenced them from a young age.
Carlo and Dante’s father Tim was a pioneer for California Pinot Noir in the early 1970s, always with a tremendous regard for the great wines of Burgundy. Carlo and Dante credit their father’s passion for Pinot Noir as their earliest inspiration. They also consider their father their first teacher in beyond-organic farming, an approach they've followed as a family of farmers for decades, and Carlo and Dante consider themselves ‘winegrowers’ rather than winemakers.
Today, Carlo and Dante and their small team continue to dedicate themselves to the founding ethos of RAEN in 2013 – farming prized, coastal sites with the utmost respect for Nature to produce limited bottlings that are expressive of site and can sit alongside the world’s finest.
CURRENT RELEASE - 2022
Steep, raw and powerful, this hillside monopole vineyard sits mere miles from the cool Pacific Ocean, facing Bodega Bay in between the villages of Freestone and Occidental, where morning fog from the coast engulfs the vineyard. This 1.8-acre site is the oldest meter-by-meter planting of pinot noir on the Sonoma Coast, and due to its high density and steep slope, is farmed 100% by hand. This site presents our coolest and most exotic terroir.
Sun-warmed rose petals, wild strawberries, black cherries, and a rainy forest floor fill the bowl. This is followed by notes of muddled blackberry, thyme, pine branches and forni brown mushrooms transporting us to the Redwood forest that surrounds this site. On the palate, there is a beautiful ballet between red berries and dark fruit that is seamlessly intertwined with exotic spice box, zesty orange pith and crushed gravel, giving way to a seemingly everlasting finish.
