2008 Pinot Noir Rice-Spivak Vineyard

Although the Cobb family bought and planted Coastlands in 1989, they didn't start making their own wines until 2001. Building on his nine years at Flowers, Ross Cobb began gradually expanding the family's range of bottlings. These are delicate, polished Pinots that reflect the unique personality of this coastal site and all of its shades of nuance. The Pinots see about 40% new oak in the first year of aging, followed a bit less than that in the second year. Vintage 2010 presented considerable challenges. There is no Rice-Spivak or Emmaline because of crop failure. Fortunately, both wines are back in 2011. The 2010 Pinots were bottled in July 2012.

Ross Cobb told me that he has been focusing as much of his time as possible on the vineyards he owns and with which he works because "vineyard management is everything." He said that "paying full attention to everybody who is involved with the vines" is the most critical part of the winemaking equation and that he likes to be "physically in the vineyards as much as and whenever possible. It's not enough to send e-mails, make phone calls or send texts; you have to get out there and in there, which is obviously far easier to do if you're working with vineyards in the same region." He also said that he's content to to work with the relative handful of sites he has now because "if you expand t much it isn't logistically possible to keep a close eye on things." Cobb is now the winemaker for Hirsch Vineyards, which is a neighbor of his Coastlands Vineyard, which he said helps to keep his feet even deeper in the local dirt.