Nalle Hopkins Ranch Pinot Noir

Tasting notes & discussion 45

Worried the Summer heat will get to your wine before it gets to you? Try our new Summer Hold option here!

Typically $62/bottle from Nalle Winery
Vintage 2023 from the Russian River Valley
Available for AL; AZ; AR; CA; CO; CT; DC; FL; GA; ID; IL; IN; IA; KS; KY; LA; ME; MD; MA; MI; MN; MO; MT; NE; NV; NH; NJ; NM; NY; NC; ND; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; VT; VA; WA; WV; WI; WY
Sold by participating winery or licensee, fulfilled by Wine Country Connect

About Nalle Winery: “A visit to our rustic setting offers an authentic view of our limited production, family owned and operated winery located in the heart of Dry Creek Valley. Tastings, often hosted by a Nalle family member, are on the patio area behind our living roof winery.”

Luckiest Plaque In The Valley

TASTING NOTES: “Cherries, raspberries, red roses, supple, baking spices, savoriness, finesse, and classy French oak.” (AbV 13.6%, pH 3.58, TA 5.3 g/L)

VARIETALS: Pinot Noir

BARRELS: Not specified.

PAIRS WITH: N/A

THAT REMINDS ME OF: Hopkins Ranch.

Ranches have names. This feels natural to us now — the Ponderosa, the Flying W, the Double Diamond — but there’s a whole genre of deeply serious scholarship dedicated to why humans name land at all. Not buildings, not roads, but tracts of land we happen to own for a while. The prevailing theory is something called “landmark salience,” the idea that names help people navigate, coordinate, and remember. Sure. Reasonable. But there’s a competing explanation that I find more convincing, which is that people name things because they love them, and naming is how you tell something you love it when it can’t hear you.

Which brings me to the Hopkins in question. There are roughly 47,000 people in the United States with the last name Hopkins — a patronymic derived from “Hopkin,” itself a diminutive of “Robert” filtered through medieval Welsh pronunciation habits. (English names are a long game of telephone played over eight centuries.) One of those Hopkinses apparently owns, or owned, or at some point cultivated, an 80-plus-year-old organic farm in Russian River Valley, and their name is now on a bottle of Pinot Noir. That’s not a small thing. Most of us will be lucky to get a plaque on a park bench.

ICYMI, you have two choices:

Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from the sale linked here, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year!
Want it shipped now? Every package during the summer will have protected temp control ground shipping for much of the country that takes longer but will ensure safe delivery. Expect up to two weeks for delivery. Now through the September 12th offer.

Who's buying this?

How are you buying your bottles?

What's the most enduring thing you've put your name on?

Something I built with my hands

Something I built with my hands
A piece of land or a home

A piece of land or a home
A creative work — writing, art, music

A creative work — writing, art, music
I haven't yet, but I'm working on it

I haven't yet, but I'm working on it
Tell me yours in the comments

Tell me yours in the comments

26 votes