2014 Petaluma Gap Pinot Noir

I tasted four Pinot Noirs from 2014, all of them stunning. My favorite is the 2014 Pinot Noir Petaluma Gap, which is made from Dijon clones 777, 115 and 828 and aged in a combination of François Freres and Gamba oak. He doesn’t filter, so what he has in the barrels ends up in the bottle. The wine has an incredible fragrance of spring flowers, black raspberries, kirsch and licorice, with forest floor. This is a full-bodied, dense, wonderfully textured Pinot Noir with beautiful purity and a long finish – a sumptuous Côtes de Nuit grand cru look-alike. Drink it over the next decade or more.