98pts Jeb Dunnuck

The 2022 Pinot Noir The Traveler is a deep magenta ruby hue and is entirely from a suitcase clone that is now referred to as the "Wayfarer Clone." In the glass, it reveals a complex and layered nose of ripe cherries, wildflowers, black raspberries, forest herbs, and blood orange. It’s driving on the palate, with refined tannins and coiled, bright acidity throughout, and it’s fully ripe but has a persistently long finish. Not a wine for the faint of heart, it’s built for the long haul and is going to show its best if given time in the cellar. Drink 2026-2046.

98pts Vinous

The 2022 Pinot Noir The Traveler is captivating. It is also one of the most dense, powerful wines in this range. Blue/purplish fruit, menthol, lavender, mocha and licorice are all amplified. Time reveals more delicacy, while soft, silky contours wrap it all together. This is inky and plush, with seamless balance and mind-blowing intensity. What a wine!

95pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2022 Pinot Noir The Traveler is bursting with cranberry, strawberry and raspberry perfume and accents of mixed tea leaves, mushroom, amaro and floral perfume. The medium-bodied palate offers waves of kaleidoscopic berry fruit yet has a weightless feel with its silky tannins and bright acidity, and it has a very long, spicy finish. It's drinking beautifully now, though you could cellar it for a decade or more.

94pts Wine Spectator

Very expressive, delivering plump-edged mulberry, boysenberry and raspberry reduction notes inlaid with light apple wood, anise and iris details. Seamless acidity provides the support, while a late flash of potpourri gives this a nice finishing kick. Drink now through 2034.

Winemaker Notes

Over ten vintages, The Traveler has shown it is a wine with extraordinary personality. A chameleon in the glass, Wayfarer does their best to taste wines blind, but its ability to transform gives it away. From roses to pomegranate, white truffles to dry flowers, blood orange to fresh herbs, this wine is constantly revealing itself, and it will age beautifully in your cellar for at least a decade.

Tasting Notes

A vivid ruby in the glass, the 2022 Pinot Noir ‘The Traveler’ reveals perfumed aromas of Morello cherry, pomegranate and crushed raspberry accompanied by bergamot, thyme, orange peel, iron, forest floor and licorice. Our most dynamic wine, The Traveler defies description, continually transforming in the glass over a period of hours. Defined by a thrilling vibrancy, complex savory tones, a paradoxical impression of weightlessness, and a persistent and concentrated finish, The Traveler will age beautifully in your cellar for a decade or more. The vines that create The Traveler bottling were originally cuttings from a famed Vosne-Romanée Grand Cru vineyard in Burgundy, France that were smuggled into California in the early 1990s – giving our most nuanced and soulful wine its name.

Winery Notes

Wayfarer was founded as a secluded farmstead more than 40 years ago, before its locale was defined as the now coveted Fort Ross Seaview AVA. In 1989, Jayson Pahlmeyer's winemaker, Helen Turley, discovered the site for sale down the road from her Marcassin vineyard. She introduced Pahlmeyer, declaring it destined to become "the La Tache of California."

In tandem with his daughter Cleo and renowned winemaker Bibiana Gonzales Rave, Pahlmeyer drives to make intricate wines of transcendence, answering to powerful, ever-unpredictable climate that rewards only the most observant and meticulous. It is an endeavor of true passion, an experiment that pushes the exactitude of winegrowing and winemaking to the farthest limits.