Shall I compare wine to a summer’s day? Perhaps not, but this especially clean pinot, with a strong cherry note that isn’t bogged down by tannins yet still packs a punch with 14.5 percent alcohol content, drinks well for a long time, lending itself to the extra daylight hours of a long summer’s picnic.

The wine is a creation of Tony Craig, and Sonnet is his personal label. The long-time head winemaker for David Bruce, Craig currently makes wines for Silver Mountain and Savannah-Chanelle as well, making him one of the more ubiquitous virtuosos of the region. Originally from Newcastle, England, Craig migrated to America as a Shakespearean actor, coming to California to find work in the film industry. When he discovered that demand for Shakespeare in Los Angeles is slight (frailty, thy name is Hollywood), he wandered north, intending to make his home in the Pacific Northwest. Ensnared by the Santa Cruz Mountains, as so many of us are, he found work as an assistant at David Bruce, and the rest is viticultural history.

Sonnet opened five years ago with a 2001 Pinot Noir from Monterey (Sonnet continues to use four different vineyards, of which Muns is the only true local), and is named for his love of Shakespeare—each label bears a different selection from among the bard’s 154 sonnets. His favorite is No. 130, which he says he imagines an old farmhand reciting:

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

This thread of—how to describe it—brutally honest adoration runs through Craig’s craft, as he endeavors to bring out the characteristics of each vineyard’s soil and climate, rather than impose his ideal notion of a pinot on every batch. This leads to great variety (I found his Silver Mountain pinot noir from the Tondres grapefield in Monterey’s Santa Lucia highlands, for instance, to be much heavier than the Muns Sonnet, and more suited to intense concentration with each taste than a lazy day’s sipping under the sun) without any loss of control.

You can find Craig’s creations at Vino Cruz next to the Museum of Art & History in downtown Santa Cruz, where co-owner J-P Correa will be happy to regale you with more stories of Craig and other local winemakers (he knows them all). And should you select the Muns Pinot Noir, save it for a sunny day.

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