Sphaerics 'Superset' Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast, USA 2024

Sphaerics is a small production California winery founded in 2022 by winemaking duo Brian Ball and Laura Jones (Aubert/Rousseau), focused on limited-release Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from top cool climate vineyard sites in Napa and Sonoma. The project emphasizes a Burgundian inspired approach, using careful vineyard sourcing, native fermentations, and long elevage to highlight purity, texture, and site expression rather than overt richness. Production is extremely limited, with each wine released in only a few hundred cases. Overline and On Days and Nights have quickly gained attention for their balance of California fruit intensity with fine structure, acidity, and mineral drive.

“Superset” Pinot Noir 2024, Sonoma Coast is a limited-production coastal Pinot Noir that captures the cool, maritime influence of the Sonoma Coast with precision and finesse. The wine opens with expressive aromatics of red cherry, wild strawberry, raspberry, and blood orange, lifted by notes of rose petal, dried herbs, and subtle earthy spice. On the palate it is silky and finely structured, showing pure red fruit clarity supported by vibrant acidity and fine-grained tannins that give the wine tension and length. A restrained use of oak adds gentle spice and depth without overshadowing the vineyard character, leading to a long, focused, mineral-tinged finish.

"The 2024 Pinot Noir Superset is the first red wine from Laura Jones and Brian Ball, sourced from two Martinelli properties-Frei Road and Bondi Home Ranch. It's a very promising wine that oozes with class. Dark cherry fruit, lavender, underbrush and blood orange peel build with air, but it's the 2024's textural suaveness and delicacy that impress most. This is a very solid debut. I look forward to tasting it from bottle, as well as following the red wine program here as the approach is dialed in." Vinous 92-94