Wine Review Online Gives Benovia's "Polished" Pinots High Marks

91 Points | 2007 Pinot Noir Cohn Vineyard, Sonoma County

"Sweet and very soft, with even more of the pretty, highly-polished character displayed by this producer's Savoy Vineyards offering from Mendocino's Anderson Valley.  It is the better integrated of the two wines, with less obvious oak, and would ultimately be the pick of the two for me--especially if I weren't buying it in a restaurant and knew that I'd be able to lay it down for a few years.  It doesn't need that time to soften, as it is already softer then many tasters would think optimal, but a couple of additional years in the bottle will lessen the wine's sweetness and bring up additional aromatic complexity."

90 Points | 2007 Pinot Noir Savoy Vineyards, Anderson Valley

"Both of the current release, single vineyard Pinots from Benovia are extremely pretty and polished, with very soft structure and rounded mouthfeel (for better or worse, depending on whether you prefer polish to grip and primary fruit character in your Pinot Noir).  Of the two wines, this one shows a little more complexity on account of a nice note of smoky, toasty oak up top.  It isn't as subtle as the Cohn Vineyard offering from Sonoma County, but for now it is narrowly the more interesting of the two."

- By Michael Franz, Wine Review Online, December 2009