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Pinot Noir Wine Tasting Notes
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2006 MacMurray Ranch Russian River Valley, Pinot Noir $37 Score: 88.0 Deep black cherry, smokey on the palate with subtle spice that comes in on the mid-palate and carries the finish with a bite. It's a bit angular at the moment, but it shows a lot of character and structure. Give it 5 years to round out the edges. |
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2006 Frei Brothers Russian River Valley Pinot Noir $30 Score: 88.0 It's always a pleasure to taste a wine with well defined varietal characteristics and Frei Brothers Russian River Valley 2006 Pinot Noir delivers with intense black cherry fruit, light tannin and silky texture. |
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2007 Kenwood Vineyards Russian River Valley, Pinot Noir Rosé $13 Score: 90.0 One of the best rosés I've encountered. Most rosés bear only a glancing resemblance to the red grapes that gave them expression. Kenwood's 2007 Pinot Noir Rosé is emphatically Pinot Noir with its violet and strawberry character. It's so barely off-dry that most will perceive it as fully dry. It has lovely balance and a hint of spritz. Serve at cellar temperature for best results. Stellar! |
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2006 Redwood Creek Provincia di Pavia Pinot Noir $8 Score: 86.0 Redwood Creek is an E&J Gallo label, and in case you haven't been watching lately these peripheral labels are putting out some amazingly good wine for the price point. This one is even more unusual, as it's sourced from Italy. It's a light bodied wine with little tannin, light varietal character (i.e. cherry and floral notes typical of Pinot), nice silky texture, and a dried fruit and mineral finish of moderate length. It also exhibits an indescribable sense of place -- it just tastes Italian. You won't find great depth or complexity here, but it's a pleasant quaff for $8. |
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2005 Angeline Russian River Valley Pinot Noir $14.00 Score: 87.0 It's common practice to blend Cabernet Sauvignon with other grapes, but this is the first blended Pinot Noir I've encountered, having 6% Merlot and 3% Zinfandel. This is not the most complex Pinot, nor the richest, but it is one of the most elegant wines you'll ever encounter. It's perfectly balanced, with moderate alcohol and crisp acidity, showing bright fruit flavors (strawberries, raspberries) and a hint of vanilla and mushrooms. It's an excellent aperitif and food wine (salmon, Cantonese fare, chicken, turkey and lamb would all be excellent accompaniments). Incidentally and immaterially, the color of this wine is worth the price of admission. |
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2005 Kenwood Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Reserve $25 Score: 81.0 This is a complex wine, but it's not a style that complements the subtlty and grace of Pinot Noir. It's extracted and powerful, with a touch too much alcohol and an odd eucalyptus-mint background that I find distracting. Still, you'll find cherry, plum and cola, alongside vanilla and smoke flavors. The tannin is a bit coarse and bitter, and the finish on the warm side. I expect it will improve over the next 5 to 7 years. However, if I wanted this style of wine, I would be better off with a Syrah. |
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2005 Valley of the Moon Carneros Pinot Noir $20 Score: 84.0 This is a good Pinot but it's on the fringe of being overly ripe. With 14.5% alcohol and a robust stature, it might remind you of a full-bodied Syrah. The fruit also leans more toward raspberry-plum than the typical cherry of Pinot Noir. Still, the silky texture is true to form and you can't fault it for lacking character. Best for near term drinking (not beyond 2012). |
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2004 Gypsy Dancer A&G Estate Vineyard Dundee Hills Oregon Pinot Noir $60 Score: 90.0 A mere 745 six-bottle cases produced, but you'll be well-rewarded if you can find it. This is what we look for in a classic Pinot. It serves up a cherry and violet aroma with a touch of damp earth that follows through to the palate with the addition of dark chocolate. Complex, well-balanced, enjoyable now and likely to age gracefully over the next decade. |
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2004 Bargetto Regan Vineyards Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir Reserve $35 Score: 86.0 Floral nose, following through to the palate with cherries, anise and cinnamon typical of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It has firm structure and a long, warm, very spicy finish. It's a decent Pinot, though a bit tight at the moment. I recommend giving it another year or two in the bottle. 283 cases produced. |
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2004 Brassfield Estate Winery High Valley Pinot Noir $23 Score: 81.0 Here we find a competently made wine with silky texture, deep cooked cherry fruit character layered with vanilla and light toast from the oak. It has crisp acidity and light tannin, but a rather hot finish, and overall it seems more like a Syrah than a Pinot Noir. 800 cases produced. |
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2003 Robert Mondavi Winery Napa Valley Pinot Noir Reserve $50 Score: 93.0 Fabulously aromatic nose of violets, black cherry, cardamom and nutmeg follow through to the palate with modest tannin. The only knock is the high alcohol, which gives it a warm, blocky finish. |
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2004 Williams Selyem Russian River Valley Pinot Noir $42 Score: 90.0 It's a real pleasure to encounter a properly made Pinot like this Russian River version from Williams Selyem. It's ripe enough to show forward black cherry aromas, yet not so ripe that it loses its delicacy and subtle dead leaf undertones. The tannin is negligible and the texture is a little silky. The finish, with its mineral-soil umami flavors leaves you wanting more. |
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2003 Archery Summit Arcus Estate Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Noir $75 Score: 87.0 If money is no object, Archery Summit is producing some stylistically original Pinots that will surprise and satisfy most Pinot lovers. They're denser and chewier than other Pinots, a kind of Pinot in Syrah clothing. Were you to taste this wine double blind, the black cherry and cola flavors of the 2003 Arcus Estate might tip you off to the varietal, but the weight and tannins would fool you, as would the warmth in the finish. To its credit it has a complex flavor profile, with the black cherry-cola aromas giving way to blackberry, dark chocolate and cherry liqueur on the palate. The tannins and the warm chewy finish make it anomolous in the world of Pinot Noir. It demands 5 to 9 years (2001 - 2015) further aging to coax out the finer points. |
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2002 Archery Summit Archery Summit Estate Oregon Pinot Noir $150 Score: 94.0 Archery Summit Pinots are more extracted than most, so the wines are distinctly masculine. This version is more complex than most Pinots, showing boysenberry, black cherry, cola and smoke aromas. On the palate you can add some mocha. The tannin is on the high side for a Pinot, so expect to cellar this wine for 7 to 10 years to get the most out of it. Only 580 six-bottle cases were produced. |
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2003 Archery Summit Red Hills Estate Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Noir $75 Score: 89.0 The structure and tannins are closer to Merlot (more weight), but the flavor profile is all Oregon Pinot Noir - cherry cola - and the nuances and complexity are there, but it's slightly disjointed and smothered by the tannin. Good now, but it should be much better in 2011. |
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