2015 Banshee Sonoma County Pinot Noir

The Banshee 2015 Pinot Noir (Sonoma County) is gorgeous. Ripe dark cherry, plum, spice and leather are front and center. Drink this juicy, exuberant Sonoma Pinot over the next handful of years. This is a fabulous wine for the money and one of the best values in California Pinot readers will come across. Once again, I was quite impressed with the wines I tasted from Noah Dorrance, Baron Ziegler and Steve Graf at Banshee. As terrific as the single vineyard wines are, I find nearly as much pleasure in the appellation level wines and the Rosé, all of which remain very fairly priced. The wines show a little less reduction than they used to, which in my view allows the personality of each site to really shine through. Unfortunately, only one of the 2015 single vineyard Pinots was bottled at the time of my tastings, but I hope to taste the rest of the Banshee lineup soon. (AG)