Montagu Pinot Noir Charles Heintz Vineyard Sonoma Coast 2024

We don’t need to keep you long – feel free to jump right to your cart. Snagging a high-scoring Pinot from the legendary Charles Heintz Vineyard for our price is clearly a coup to any longtime California Pinot fan. And if Heintz doesn’t ring a bell for you, this 2024 bottling is a terrific introduction, and we’ll explain what’s what.  

Montagu founder Weston Eidson, who’s originally from Texas and now firmly ensconced in Napa and Sonoma, has long been mentored by the irrepressibly talented winemaker Russell Bevan, who has too many 95-100 point scores to count. Eidson’s also been learning from Jason Moore of Modus Operandi, so he’s serious about the craft – likewise evidenced by his determination to secure grapes from the hallowed ground of Charles Heintz. 

Heintz sits on Occidental Ridge at 1,000 feet elevation, a 15-minute drive from the Pacific Ocean. The soils are Gold Ridge, which is the magic word for Pinot people. Since the farm was converted from berries and apples to vineyards in the early 1980s, its bewitchingly complex fruit has been consistently clamored over by Pinot and Chardonnay stars like DuMOL, Williams-Selyem, Littorai, and Ceritas. Those bottlings often cost several times our price today.

How is this wine so plush and perfumed only two years past harvest?! It’s almost eerie how confident and luxurious this is. Like eating black cherries and fresh Medjool dates on a mohair rug as incense wafts through your tent along the Silk Road. Rose and lilacs meld with milk chocolate and caramel, resolving in a crushed raspberry finish so tender it could bring a tear to your eye. Just gorgeous – and so easy to drink! One of California’s most celebrated vineyards – go!