Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2016 Pinot Noir Perry Ranch Vineyard (formerly Keefer Ranch) is soft, fruity and accessible, with lovely forward fruit and lovely balance. Sweet red berry fruit, hard candy, floral overtones and soft contours add to the wine's considerable immediacy. This is one of the riper, racier wines in the Siduri range.

Santa Cruz Mountains and the Santa Lucia Highlands The 2016 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills comes from a mix of vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills and is a terrific value as well as a great buy for readers looking to understand the region. A ripe, sexy wine that's loaded with notions of ripe cherries, strawberries, dried herbs, and underbrush, it’s big, rich, and mouthfilling, yet also balanced and elegant. It will easily keep for 5-6 years.

Santa Cruz Mountains and the Santa Lucia Highlands The entry-level Santa Lucia Highlands cuvée is the 2016 Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands, a mix of all the single vineyards, fermented with 15% stems. Black raspberries, blueberries, crushed flowers, and violet notes all emerge from this rich, textured, and fruit-forward effort. It's a powerful, textured, and ready to go. Drink it over the coming 5-6 years.

I have don’t have a long history with this Oregon pinot that has been made for over two decades, but this is a quality drop of wine. It’s a terrific vintage and using a diverse mix of vineyards has woven a delicious complexity into this humble pinot. This red/black fruit jumps from the glass with a silky svelteness we don’t see in California. Flowers, minerals, forest floor and deliciously sour cherry fruit entice your palate with every sip. The finish is equally impressive with intense, long-lasting flavours that linger forever.

Oregon: Pinot Still King Even In Hot 2015 and 2014 Vintages This young pinot noir shows aromas of raspberries and violets. Medium to full body, firm tannins and a fresh finish. Some crushed stone and concrete undertones. Drink now. Screw cap.

Minty sage and an intensely tart sense of citrus and rhubarb shine in this balanced, coastal-influenced red, which retains plenty of tannic power against its fresh bubbly acidity.

Generous and polished, with lively black cherry and spice flavors that take on richness toward refined tannins.

This offers laserlike focus to the concentrated red currant, cherry and plum flavors that offer plenty of minerality. Dark chocolate notes emerge on the spicy and creamy finish.

Medium-light to medium ruby; attractive, forward, fragrant, red currant, and dark cherry fruit aroma with hints of forest floor and baking spices; medium body; rich, earthy, dark cherry and red berry fruit flavors with good acid balance, and a velvety mouthfeel; medium tannin; lingering aftertaste. Deserves several more years of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

Red-cherry compote, star anise, red licorice and a hint of vanilla show on the nose of this bottling from one of Adam Lee's longtime sources in the region. The palate offers rusty and earth flavors of baked cherry, but is quite snappy and crisp, enhanced by oregano, pepper and dried flowers.

Medium-light to medium ruby; attractive, intense, ripe, dark cherry and blueberry fruit aroma with hints of dried herbs and forest floor; medium body; rich, supple, fleshy, red and dark fruit flavors with good depth and zesty acidity; medium tannin; lingering aftertaste. Very appealing to drink now, though deserves a few more years of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

Medium ruby color; attractive, deep, spicy, earthy, cherry and red currant aroma with hints of clove, vanilla, and forest floor; medium body; rich, earthy, red fruit flavors with bright acidity, a hint of cola, and some suppleness in the pleasing mouthfeel; medium tannin; lingering aftertaste. Very appealing to drink and enjoy now, though deserving another year or two of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

Elegantly layered aromas of rose petal potpourri, cranberry, raspberry and sandalwood arise on the nose of this single-vineyard study. Creamy and soft with well-integrated acid on the palate, this wine offers flavors of plum and mulberry, making for a smooth sip.

Both gamy and sweet aromas show on the nose of this bottling, with cranberry, pomegranate and candied strawberry touches offset by meaty funk. The palate is lightly bodied, with long simmering acidity and herbal touches enhancing the dark strawberry core.

Pure and very pretty essence of red and dark cherry aromas are laced with lovely spice elements that include hints of sandalwood and clove. The admirably refined medium weight flavors possess very good delineation while offering fine length on the lingering finish that also reflects a hint of bitter cherry pit character. While this could be drunk now, it should repay a several more years of bottle age first.

This long-standing vineyard designate is robust on the nose in forest earthiness and spicy cardamom, and pleasantly expansive on the palate in lasting concentration and jammy cherry and strawberry flavors.

From a family-run estate located in the heart of the Russian River, the deeper, richer 2016 Pinot Noir Parsons' Vineyard leads with serious amounts of fruit and richness. Black raspberries, red and black currants, spice, flowers, and forest floor characteristics give way to a sweetly fruited, medium to full-bodied, ready-to-go beauty that’s going to drink nicely for 7-8 years.

Medium-light to medium ruby; attractive, forward, earthy, dark cherry and red berry fruit aroma with a hint of dried herbs; medium to medium-full body; nicely balanced, firmly structured, red and dark fruit flavors with bright acidity, a hint of cola, and a rich mouthfeel; medium tannin; lingering aftertaste. Enjoyable now as it developed with airing in the glass, though also deserving a few more years of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond Siduri's 2016 Pinot Noir Ewald Vineyard is bright, punchy and endowed with a lovely sense of energy that perks up the red cherry and raspberry fruit. Medium in body and refreshing, the 2016 will drink well right out of the gage. This is understated Pinot from Siduri is nicely done.

The 2016 Pinot Noir Van Der Kamp Vineyard is gracious and airy in the glass, with lovely aromatic complexity and less overt fruit than is found in many of the other wines in the range. Readers should expect a gracious, understated style. Here, too, my impression is that the wine will be even better in another few months, once the whole clusters assimilate into the wine more fully.

Medium-light to medium ruby; attractive, forward, ripe, raspberry and dark cherry fruit aroma with hints of dried herbs, cola, and baking spices; medium to medium-full body; moderately rich, fleshy, red fruit flavors with bright acidity; medium tannin; lingering aftertaste. Deserves a few more years of bottle aging. Very highly recommended.

Well-focused on a core of ripe plum, cherry and red and dark berry flavors, supported by dusty, fine-grained tannins that give this pleasant oomph.

The 2016 Pinot Noir Lingenfelder Vineyard is laced with dried cherry, rose petal, spice, mint and lavender. Silky and medium in body, the 2015 has terrific purity of fruit. The 2016 appears to still be recovering from its recent bottling a few months ago. The 30% whole clusters are nicely integrated, even at this early stage.

The 2016 Pinot Noir Lingenfelder Vineyard is pale to medium ruby-purple colored, offering lovely black cherries, mulberries and wild blueberries notions with hints of dried herbs and underbrush. Medium-bodied with a beautiful plush texture and seamless freshness, it has loads of red and black fruit layers with a compelling floral note to the finish.

2016 PINOT NOIR, LINGENFELDER VINEYARD The nose is a powdered blueberry, pepper and clay. The palate is an indelibly robust herb-laden blue plum and earthy olive, mineral dryness.