2018 Pinot Noir Costalina

John Raytek describes 2018 as a long, cool growing season that culminated with a classic mid-September to early October harvest, something that has become less and less the norm over the last decade. Ceritas fans will note the addition of four new wines that take the place of the Hacienda Secoya and Porter-Bass Pinots, which are no longer being made. The Rivina Pinot Noir and Zephyr Chardonnay are both sourced from Red Car, in Fort Ross-Seaview, while the Senna Pinot and Carex Chardonnay are from the DuMOL estate in the Green Valley, a cold sector in the Russian River Valley that also falls under the Sonoma Coast appellation. In tasting, the 2018s are beautifully transparent and delineated, but also a touch nervous because of the bright acids, something that seems just a touch more marked in the Chardonnays than the Pinots at this stage. I did see the wines open up nicely with a few hours of air, so I suspect they will be even more expressive with time in bottle. As always, the wines are handled very gently in the cellar. There is some whole cluster influence in the Pinots, usually in the 40-70% range, but ultimately these are wines that are really about site expression more than anything else. The Pinots were bottled in November 2019, while the Chardonnays were bottled a month later. Lastly, 2018 is the first vintage bottled exclusively with 25mm corks (as opposed to 24, which was the norm), a decision taken to favor ageability.