TNs: West Coast Pinots

[Michael Malinoski]

It was a pleasure to join my friend Ed and his monthly tasting group at a local restaurant a little while back as a sub to somebody who couldn’t make it. This group often seems to focus on European wine, so I was very curious to see what sorts of wines they would bring to a blind tasting of “West Coast Pinots”.

2001 Etude Pinot Noir Carneros. This opens a bit musty, eventually evolving to include scents of sharp cranberry, licorice rope, dusty attic, funk and mushroom. In the mouth, it provides a straight shot of concentrated dark berry fruit and mocha flavor that isn’t all that fanned out or nuanced, but is juicy-sweet and pretty tasty.

2010 Westport Rivers Pinot Noir 2nd Flight Southeastern New England. Although we were all expecting some sort of ringer to find its way into the tasting, we weren’t expecting it to be from Massachusetts! This is a very pale-colored wine, with a rather unusual and seemingly under-ripe nose of cigarette ashes, ferns and limestone to go with red citrus fruit notes. It tastes like candied cherries, lime juice and soft spices, with very light body and a decidedly tart sensibility. It’s light and simple, but bright and refreshing, so it’s not altogether unpleasant.

2009 Calera Pinot Noir Ryan Vineyard Mount Harlan. This is quite nice aromatically, with ripe and voluptuous aromas of deep cherry and raspberry licorice accented very nicely by bits of sarsparilla and baseball card bubblegum stick. I like it. In the mouth, it’s very giving and generous with its flavors of zesty red berries, spices and herbs. There are some drying tannins to contend with, so it could use some time, but it’s fun and exuberant.

2006 Copain Pinot Noir "En Haut" Kiser Anderson Valley. This is fairly big on the nose, but still seemingly tightly coiled around its core aromatics of herb, ash, limestone, smoke and cool, dark berry fruit. It’s a lot more open and giving on the palate, though, where it’s showing off juicy and lifted flavors of mocha, gently sweet red berries and a fine citric acidity. It’s a little tannic, but drinking fine.

2006 Rhys Pinot Noir Alpine Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains. As it turns out, this is the 5th time I’ve tasted this wine blind in the past 4 years, none of them from my cellar (though I do own a bottle). It never really smells or tastes all that similar from one time to the next, though my notes always seem to mention the thickness of the body, the extracted fruit stuffing and the fact that I think the wine needs considerably more time in the cellar. In the case at hand, I find the wine to be darker-toned and serious on the nose, featuring fine but occasionally prickly aromas of blackberries, smoke, earth, leaves and toasty oak. In the mouth, it is intense, sappy and sticky, with great energy and youthfulness to the cherry paste, raspberry, wood, spice and herb flavors. The texture is pliant and the impressive range of flavors are rather persistent, but it certainly seems like it will benefit from more time as it can come across as a bit strident and demanding just now.

1985 Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards Pinot Noir Matteson Vineyard Santa Cruz Mountains. Although a few folks seemed to fall for this wine, I just thought it gave a wild ride of inconsistency. First off, the nose smells cooked, stewed, reduced, damaged, whatever—with aromas of mulled wine, body odor, prune and tomato paste. There are some sneaky exotic notes hiding in the background, but I have a lot of trouble enjoying it for any prolonged period of time. In the mouth, it’s rather warm and again sort of baked in tone, but with a compelling degree of exoticism to the inner mouth sensations of incense, Asian spices, baked cherry and cooked down raspberry sauce. It’s sticky and sometimes sort of unctuous and sexy, but it seems pretty far advanced to me.

2006 Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir Occidental Ridge Vineyard Sonoma Coast. I like the nose here a lot, beginning with an opening burst of crushed red berries followed by funky sous bois aromas and a bit of fine funk. It shows some burgeoning nuance and layering already and is quite lovely, really. In the mouth, it features sour cherry, wild raspberry and grilled herb flavors that are creamy-textured and nicely layered in a seamless fashion. There’s excellent balance, no heat, loads of gentle sweet berry fruit stuffing and a nice sense of delivering a complete package. My wine of the night.

2006 Estancia Pinot Noir Pinnacles Ranches Monterey County. This is an extremely dark-smelling wine, coming across almost more like a California Syrah than a Pinot Noir in its aromatic profile of black olives, vulcanized rubber, black cherry, black leather and fennel. It’s a big mouthful of wine to taste, with a blunt and chewy texture supported by chalky tannins. It delivers a ton of sweet blue fruit and barrel spice flavors, but it’s just too direct and ultimately too simple to really stand with this company, in my opinion.

2002 Kistler Pinot Noir Kistler Vineyard Russian River Valley. This wine features impressively concentrated and sappy sour cherry aromas accented by notes of charred wood and earth. It’s exuberant, rich and creamy, with big and sexy flavors of sweet purple berries pumping through from start to finish. It’s definitely on the big side, but it’s delicious.

2005 Loring Wine Company Pinot Noir Hungry Like The Llama California. This is a pretty big shift aromatically from many of the other wines in the line-up. It seems to be showing some old world aged character, with mellowed, gentlemanly aromas of cracked leather, dusty dirt roads, wild herbs, light cherry and crabapple. It’s much the same on the palate—soft, resolved and sort of elegant, but dusty, earthy and herbal. Tart cherries and strawberries lead the fruit flavors, along with a nice citric acidity. I like it, and it’s certainly ready to go, if not already trending downward.

2002 Archery Summit Pinot Noir Renegade Ridge Estate Dundee Hills. This has a nice savory edge to the aromatic profile of creamy red fruit, smoke, white pepper and five-spice powder. It’s medium-weighted, smooth, juicy and generous on the palate, displaying excellent balance and an easy refinement. It has some nice tension to the mellow but giving red fruit, but still just rolls across the palate with ease. It’s in a good spot and was my second-favorite wine of the tasting.


-Michael

[stefan]

A Loring that has old world character?!?!? I have never tasted such a Loring wine.

Archery Summit makes PN that Burgophiles can enjoy. I have never tasted a Rivers-Marie PN, but your description suggests that this a CA PN that I might like.

[Michael Malinoski]

Nobody was more surprised than me (as I am pretty sure I was the only person there who had ever tasted a single bottle of Loring)...

Definitely check out Rivers-Marie.

-Michael

[Rieslingfan]

There is an inordinately huge stash of Rhys building up at Schloss Bueker. There is so much promise there. The ? is when will it come to fruition.