2012 Pinot Noir Savoy

"It was easy to let the crops run away in 2012," Eric Sussman told me, "and considering how hard things were in '11 and '10, plus how great the fruit was in '12, that's not very hard to understand." Since Sussman has control over the fruit that he uses he has the ability to control such urges and thus crop-thinning was an ongoing endeavor in this beneficent vintage.There's a new riesling here from a two-acre planting in the Platt vineyard, which has long been a source for pinot, and Sussman said that his mailing-list clients have been thrilled with it.That's not surprising, he said, since "the kind of people who like my style of wines also tend to be into rieslings, at least dry ones."

Eric Sussman and Davida Ebner have done a magnificent job with these new and upcoming releases. As always, the focus is on sites on the Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley that are farmed sustainably. Charles Heinz Chardonnay will make its debut in this range beginning with the 2013 vintage. The Pinots and Syrahs are generally fermented with some whole clusters. Handling is minimal in the cellar, where the wines undergo native fermentations and see minimal racking prior to being bottled with no fining or filtration. Radio-Coteau stands out in the Sonoma landscape for wines of exceptional purity, transparency and pedigree. I always look forward to drinking these wines, and can't recommend them highly enough. By any measure, Radio-Coteau is world-class. It's as simple as that.