2021 Senses Wines Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

The 2021 Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley) is a rich, boisterous wine. Succulent dark cherry, spice and dried herbs are front and center. There’s good depth to the fruit, but I find vegetal notes overpowering.

A youthful purple/ruby, the 2021 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is forward with spices and violets along with wet asphalt, black raspberry compote, and cracked pepper. Supple and medium-bodied, it has fine tannins and more warming spice on the palate, with black cherry, stemmy herbs, and tea leaf, followed by a clean, rounded finish. Give this another 6-12 months in bottle and it will be ready to rock over the following 8-10 years. Founded by three childhood friends, Christopher Strieter, Max Thieriot, and Myles Lawrence-Briggs, Senses Wines has their estate holdings in the West Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley appellations. With their esteemed winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown, they are producing some exceptional Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon. They have slowly and steadily expanded their production from just 600 cases in 2012 to approximately 5000 cases today. 2021 marks the first release for their production of the Kanzler Vineyard as well as the first leaf of their estate holding of Bodega Theriot, a wine that proves you do not always need old vines to produce stunning wines – it was by far my favorite wine of the vintage from this team. Though it was technically the second leaf for the Bodega Theriot Vineyard, this site, unfortunately, was affected by the smoke of 2020, so they did not produce the wine the previous year. I highly encourage any followers of Thomas Rivers Brown to seek these wines out.