2019 RAEBURN PINOT NOIR, RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY SONOMA COUNTY CALIFORNIA

If Napa is the Bordeaux side of California – producing Cabernet and Merlot in prodigious quantities – then Russian River Valley (RRV), in Sonoma County, represents California’s Burgundy side. It produces almost exclusively Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

So named because the coast of California used to be inhabited by Russian whalers, the Valley’s eponymous river flows down from Mendicino heading south but then, just below Healdsburg, cuts west, creating a gorge in the coastal mountain range that empties into the Pacific at the tiny seaside town of Jenner.