Argot’s 2023 Bastard Tongue Pinot Noir is a Sonoma County bottling built as a blend from three distinct vineyards, all 100% Pinot Noir. It’s made in a deliberately high-touch, cellar-driven style: fruit is hand-harvested at night through September, then cluster- and berry-sorted by hand. The winery reports the grapes are de-stemmed without crushing, given a seven-day cold soak, and fermented natively in open-top bins, followed by about 14 days on skins.

The élevage is a major part of the wine’s identity. Bastard Tongue spends 20 months in 100% new French oak, is never racked prior to bottling, and is bottled unfined and unfiltered. That regimen tends to produce a Pinot Noir with both polish and structure, and it also helps explain why the wine is positioned as a limited, premium release: production is listed at 200 cases, with a suggested retail price of $94.

Critically, the wine has at least one standout professional review. In an excellent 97-point assessment for *The Wine Palate*, Lisa Perrotti-Brown writes that the 2023 “soars from the glass with powerful notes of pomegranate and black raspberries,” followed by “violets, crushed rocks, and juicy red cherries with a waft of mint tea.” She describes a “full-bodied palate” that stays “bright with red berry layers and a racy line,” supported by “fine-grained tannins” and finishing with a “lingering fragrant earth note.”

Those notes—pomegranate, black raspberry, mineral tones, mint tea, and earth—frame this as a Pinot Noir aimed more at intensity and detail than overt sweetness. With its extended time in all-new French oak and unfiltered bottling, it should also reward some patience at the table or in the cellar, particularly for drinkers who like concentrated Sonoma County Pinot Noir with energy and savory complexity.