Pinotfile Vol 10 Issue 1
If you drink no Noir, you Pinot Noir Volume 10, Issue 1 December 11, 2014 Petaluma Gap: Cooling Wind is the Recipe for Fine Wine The Petaluma Gap is both an opening in the coastal hills of southwestern Sonoma County allowing marine air to pass into the Bay Area and Russian River Valley (a term coined by local winegrowers over 15 years ago), and a geographic winegrowing region defined by the cooling “wind tunnel” effect resulting from this break in the coastal mountain range. This region, part of the large, 50,000-acre Sonoma Coast appellation (AVA), extends from the Pacific Ocean to San Pablo Bay, comprising an area of low lying land 21 to 30 miles wide. Because of the low terrain in the Petaluma Gap, there is little resistance to the marine air that rushes in daily, bringing with it the cooling coastal fog. A typical day in the Petaluma Gap begins with a blanket of cool, damp, morning fog. By 11:00 am, the sun chases away the fog and the temperature rises as much as 50º F. By mid- afternoon, the cool on shore breezes begin, gathering speed as the afternoon progresses, and bringing in the almost nightly fog, and a temperature drops returns. The predominant wind pattern in the Petaluma Gap is for funneled marine air to move eastward from the coast toward Sonoma Mountain, then to split into northward and southward paths. The northward path enters Cotati and diminishes as it travels toward Santa Rosa. The southward path travels unabated through the Lakeville area before dissipating at San Pablo Bay.
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