2023 Waypoint Sonoma County Pinot Noir

The Sonoma Coast is where California Pinot Noir stopped trying to be rich and started trying to be right. Pacific fog, cool mornings, long slow ripening — this is the appellation that gave Pinot Noir its West Coast legitimacy. Waypoint's version is made by Matt Sands and Philippe Melka, the same team behind the Ritchie and Heintz Vineyard Chardonnays. This is their appellation-level Pinot: multiple Sonoma Coast sources, stainless steel fermented to let the fruit and terroir do the talking, not the barrel.

Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir needs a particular kind of restraint in the cellar. The appellation's natural acidity and red-fruit character are easily overwhelmed by oak, which is exactly why the stainless steel approach here makes sense — it keeps the wine fresh, bright, and structurally driven rather than plush and heavy. The result is a Pinot in the cooler, more European idiom that the appellation does best: black cherry, raspberry, cranberry, and red currant alongside floral rose petal lift and a long, earthy finish.

This is the Waypoint Pinot without a single-vineyard designation, which means it draws from multiple Sonoma Coast sites to build complexity across the blend.

That's not a compromise — it's a different kind of winemaking. Where the single-vineyard Pinots from this producer show you what one place tastes like, this one shows you what the whole appellation is capable of in the hands of the right team.