The Latest Cristaldi Scores
Vintage
Wine
Color
Rating
Vintage
Wine
Color
Rating
River Camp Vineyard sits in Anderson Valley on the northern side of the Navarro River and is planted entirely to a single Pinot Noir selection, Clone 828. In the glass, the wine shows blue-black fruit, forest berry, and pine forest earth notes, layered with brown spice. The palate is juicy and generous, building through the mid-palate with white-pepper-dusted earth, crushed clove, and a supple richness that carries through the finish.
The Whistler Vineyard—a former Banshee site—sits above the fog line at roughly 800–1,000 feet in elevation. The soils are primarily Goldridge sandy loam with uplifted marine sediment. Berry size is small, with tight clusters from a mix of Swan, Pommard, and Dijon clones 667, 777, and 115, resulting in notable concentration and extract. Rob Fischer is particularly fond of incorporating some whole cluster here, which shows up as white pepper, clove, and subtle black tea aromatics. On the palate, the wine delivers loads of crunchy red fruit—strawberry, raspberry, and cherry—balanced by a strong earthy drive. There’s impressive mid-palate richness and an expansive, creamy texture, layered with savoury notes of chanterelle mushroom and white pepper. The finish is long and expressive, framed by apple-skin tannins that add grip and persistence without sacrificing energy or freshness.
Grand Vent Vineyard lies about six miles west of the town of Petaluma, a cool, wind-swept site. That exposure brings a distinctive tannic grip to the wine. It builds steadily in the glass with smoky clove notes, cherry fruit, and blood orange, all melding seamlessly on the medium-bodied palate. Ultra-fine, velvety tannins support a very juicy mid-palate, carrying through to a long finish marked by wet-slate minerality and gently building tannin. The overall impression is one of generosity and freshness, underpinned by layered, finely tuned textural complexity.
Sourced from Bohemian Vineyard, a 7-acre Pinot Noir site in the Freestone of the Sonoma Coast, this vineyard is planted to a mix of Dijon clones in classic Goldridge soils and exposed to the full spectrum of cool-climate conditions the area is known for. The fruit is hand-picked at night and fermented with 20% whole cluster, followed by a cool native fermentation and 16 days on the skins. The wine is gravity-drained and lightly pressed, then aged for 11 months in 25% new French oak. In 2023, the wine is distinctly red-fruit driven, layered with savory spice and marked by beautiful linearity and focus. There’s a firm, tactile grip from the tannins—shaped by skins that contend with the site’s extreme cold and wind—alongside sumptuous earth notes, white truffle, and white pepper interlaced with crunchy red fruit. Bright acidity provides strong structural bones, while the tannins build with a delicate yet persistent intensity. Complex, heady, and deeply site-expressive.
Lyra is the Sonoma Coast blend, built on Marine Layer fruit alongside select Dutton sites and Jentoff, a 16-acre vineyard west of the town of Occidental. The blend also includes fruit from Gap’s Crown Vineyard and Annapolis, with Uproad Vineyard contributing from the heart of Green Valley, rooted in Goldridge’s red-brown, fluffy soils. For Rob Fischer, Lyra is meant to be representative of vibrant coastal red fruit and lively acidity. Fermentations include 20–25% whole cluster, followed by ageing for 11 months in 22% new French oak. The wine leads with a stunning, heady burst of juicy red cherry, raspberry, and red floral notes, layered with orange peel, subtle hints of vanilla or strawberry panna cotta, and a touch of redwood bark and loamy earth. Bright and buoyant on the palate, it’s juicy and lifted, framed by fine-grained, cocoa-powder-like tannins. Brown baking spices, a touch of clove, and a hint of grapefruit zest carry through the long, expressive finish.
Sources include vineyards in Freestone-Occidental and the Petaluma Gap, along with the Marine Layer Vineyard in the Sebastopol Hills and fruit from Green Valley. Fermentations are native, with partial malolactic fermentation, followed by gentle lees stirring once per month. The wine is aged for 11 months in 500-litre puncheons from Stockinger, Damy, and Atelier, bottled unfined and lightly filtered. The wine builds beautifully in the glass, opening with bright aromatics of apple and white flowers, accented by a pop of tarragon or fennel. On the palate, a lovely creamy core from Wente Clone and Calera clones is framed by subtle apple-skin tannin grip, with hints of brioche and beeswax adding depth. It finishes with a wet-stone mineral character and crunchy sea-salt salinity, bringing lift, precision, and a sense of controlled unctuousness through the close. The 2024 vintage was a little warmer than 2023 but this is right in the same pocket qualitatively as the 2023. Snap it up!
Rob Fischer tells me that he and the team at Marine Layer Wines have a deep admiration for grower Champagne. Having loved his time making sparkling wine at Domaine Carneros, he was eager to bring that sensibility back to Marine Layer. The wine blends Clone 115 from the Marine Layer Estate with Chardonnay from Gap’s Crown Vineyard. The base wine is barrel-fermented in neutral oak, then aged sur lie for 22 months with low dosage. The finished wine offers lovely baking spice and citrus notes alongside white flowers and subtle nutty undertones. A bright, creamy mousse carries flavours of cherry pit and white plum, underpinned by a saline-driven acid tension that lingers through the expressive, finely balanced finish.
Fermented on skins for 24 days with a pied de cuve wild yeast culture, this wine is 100% free-run, with no pressure applied to separate it from the skins, and aged in concrete amphora. Fragrant in its Cabernet Franc character, it shows wild herbs, dried sage, smoked paprika, and grilled Piment d’Espelette notes. The palate is rather creamy, with supple, soft tannins and a very pleasant medium-bodied finish. From Montezuma Winery (Martin Family Wineries).
Every time I take a sip of something new from Phil Plummer, I grow more confident that whatever he makes, I’m going to like—and you probably will, too. When the Local Culture Western Sun Pet-Nat hits the glass, its hazy hue and gentle, frothy bubbles look more like a beer than a wine, setting you up for a surprise. Sure enough, there’s an almost IPA-like edge here, yet it remains refined and expressive on the medium-bodied, off-dry palate, with just a kiss of honeyed apricot sweetness and zesty honeysuckle freshness carried by bright, tension-filled acidity. At 11.2% alcohol, it’s dangerously easy to keep sipping, so skip the chores, put out a cheese plate, and settle in with this delectable pét-nat. From Idol Ridge Winery (Martin Family Wineries).
Super frothy and downright delicious, this sparkler is beautifully layered around a core of honey-drizzled rose petals and underripe pineapple. There’s an undeniably gulpable generosity here, with a bright, frothy, creamy mousse lifting the floral and fruity profile of this Delaware grape bottling. Labeled medium-dry, it delivers exactly that, with a kiss of honeyed sweetness that makes it especially enticing. From Idol Ridge Winery (Martin Family Wineries).
This Syrah from Sonoma Mountain was aged for 22 months in 50% new French oak. The resulting wine bursts with aromas of violets, white pepper, blood orange, and cherry, framed by expressive pine forest notes. The palate is rich yet lifted, carrying those vibrant elements through a long, beautifully attractive finish. As it opens in the glass, the wine builds with additional layers of white pepper, cedarwood, and blackberry and black cherry fruit, accented by a hint of charcuterie. Powerful tannins and a dark slate–driven mineral character frame the wine, while blood orange notes, zesty acidity, and palpable tension keep everything fresh and focused. It feels super fresh and a bit coiled at this stage. Winemaker Justin Harmon notes, “Syrah should be farmed like Pinot—but it’s so vigorous you need a machete to the canopy, or the sun will never reach the fruit.” To ensure proper exposure, the vineyard is farmed down to one cluster per shoot, yielding around 2.5 tons per acre.
The Indigo Syrah from Sonoma Mountain was aged for 28 months in 100% new French oak, and in 2022 this wine feels like an anomaly for the vintage—though perhaps not. Winemaker Justin Harmon tells me the grapes were still going through veraison during the 2022 heatwave, after which conditions cooled significantly. That sequence shows clearly in the glass. There is an impressive sense of coolness to the wine, with blue- and black-fruited character, beautifully perfumed rose petal and violet notes, all building into a full-bodied richness on the palate. The structure is framed by supple, soft, round, silky tannins, finishing with unctuous dark berry fruit and cocoa powder–like tannins, followed by a saline, wet-slate mineral note on the long finish. This is a dangerously drinkable wine—make sure you do not have to drive anywhere after pulling the cork.
The Bastard Tongue Pinot Noir is a Sonoma County appellation blend, drawn from exceptional fruit sources. As winemaker Justin Harmon puts it, “Every single one of our Pinots has a shot at becoming this cuvée.” The final blend is often anchored by Swan selection, as it is in 2023, and incorporates fruit from seven sites. Fermented in stainless steel and aged for 22 months in 85% new French oak, the wine delivers on its promise year after year. This is a dark, brooding, and expansive Pinot Noir, packed with rich, night-dark fruit and a mineral intensity so pronounced it might have a Texas oilman sniffing for liquid gold in the glass. Full-bodied and deeply expressive, it shows off-the-charts rose petal floral intensity alongside dark brown baking spices and Asian spice notes, with crushed river stone minerality adding further complexity. There is real tannic intensity here—powerful yet nicely integrated—ensuring graceful ageing, all driven by a vibrant core of bracing acidity.
Le Rayon Vert is a barrel-select cuvée that undergoes extended élevage, spending 14 months in oak followed by six months in stainless steel, with additional time in stainless steel prior to bottling. The wine is then held for a further six months before release. Fruit is sourced from three sites in Bennett Valley: two hillside vineyards and one valley-floor site. The aromatics are super bright and expressive, led by citrus peel and flinty minerality, with subtle toasted cedarwood and spicy ginger notes. On the palate, there is a radiant core of electric acidity and saline mineral tension that brings terrific focus and energy. As with the previous vintage, the finish is long and layered, marked by bright, crunchy apple spice and a lingering wet-slate mineral note.
This is a Méthode Champenoise–style Grenache sparkling wine. It is fermented in large-format neutral oak casks and aged seven years en tirage, with late disgorgement and a 5 g/L dosage. The wine is delicious, showing crunchy, delicate mixed-berry fruit alongside toasted hazelnut nuances. Bright and precise, it features a persistent, finely textured mousse that builds richness across the palate, finishing with a zesty mid-palate lift and blood orange–driven acidity on the long, energetic finish.
Aged for 19 months in European and French oak (50% new) and sourced entirely from estate-grown fruit from Concannon’s Blocks 7, 17, 10, and 15. This is a generous, inviting red wine, offering spiced plum fruit and mulberry nuances layered with rich fig character and fig paste. Subtle notes of toasted marshmallow, mocha, and espresso bean add depth. It’s honestly reminiscent of biting into a Fig Newton—rich, comforting, and deeply satisfying—with a long, textured, lingering finish.
Aged for 20 months in French oak and sourced entirely from estate-grown fruit in Block 15 of the Concannon Vineyard and Lemmons Vineyard. The wine shows brighter fruit tones and warm baking spice, wrapped in elegant cedarwood notes that encompass the palate. Nuances of rose petal and rose stem emerge, along with a subtle hint of grilled red pepper—like a light pepper char—on the firm, satisfying finish. This is a structured Cabernet Franc with the depth and balance to cellar comfortably for a decade; keep enough on hand to enjoy its evolution over time.
