Pinot Noir

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy Pinot Noir. There, I said it. Ridicule me if you must, but it's a wine that for many reasons I have issues with. I will explain those in greater detail below. But every once in a while, I come across one that I think is outstanding. Today, I was introduced to one of those.

First, my complaints / issues with Pinot Noir.

The Sideways Effect

Americans, as a whole, are lemmings and the movie Sideways is an excellent example. This movie single-handedly moved Pinot Noir up a couple of notches on the national consumption list. But it goes much deeper than that. Following the movie, the grape's demand shot way up leading many grape growers to rethink what they were planting and growing. The movie also beat the Merlot grape to a pulp (literally). As a result, a good part of those grape growers grafted their vines from Merlot to Pinot Noir. The problem with that? Pinot Noir and Merlot don't usually thrive in the same climates and soils. This lead to many acres of Pinot Noir currently planted in areas and regions that just don't create good wine. Bummer.

Pinot Noir is finicky

Plant Pinot in a climate that is perfect for it (cool, foggy and even windy) and it will grow extremely well. Sure, you have to worry about mold, bunch rot and mildew like most other grapes, but in the right climate it works. Where Pinot is finicky is mostly on the way to the winery and in the cellar. It's a thin skin grape and can be damaged easily during the transportation process. So, the closer the winery is to the vineyard the better. In addition, the cellar is a place where many things can go wrong. Generally, Pinot Noir is handled differently in the crushing, pressing and fermentation process.

Many winemakers will de-stem the grapes and drop them whole berry into stainless steel tanks. The pressure of the grapes on top of each other cracks their skins and allows the juice to be extracted. Then a cold soak happens. This is extra time on the skin and can be anywhere between a few days to a couple of weeks. The thinner the skin, the shorter the time because it takes less time to extract the colors and flavors you're looking for.

Ok, so now that I've gotten too technical, here's the problem. Because demand has increased so much, the proper time and care isn't being taken in the cellar. It's quite sad because no wine should be treated that way.

BUT, everyonce in a while there's a Pinot that I taste that is truly amazing. It has all the right qualities I'm looking for in Pinot: Cool Climate, good winemaking techniques and all these amazing flavors.

This one was opened by a friend today and I immediately enjoyed it. It only got better with more time in the glass....


And the back....At $42 a bottle, it's not cheap, but it's certainly not expensive for Pinot either. It's really easy to get above $50 and not uncommon to see $75 for bottles of this grape. There is a lot of inconsistency though. With some grape varieties there's a decent scale of more expensive, better qualities. But there seems to be an exception with this type of wine.

This wine had a killer nose of black cherry, blackberry along with some forest floor and mushrooms. In the mouth, the wine coated my tongue like cream cheese on a bagel. It was intense - I had to sit down. Then it followed with this amazingly long finish, uncommon for most of the Pinot's I've tasted.

All in all, I haven't given up hope. But Pinot remains to be a tough grape for me to get behind. I do think the food pairing opportunities with it are quite broad and chef's and wine buyers for restaurants definitely use that to their advantage. I can't say that's a bad thing. I will continue to look far and wide (in and out of Sonoma County) for good producers of this grape. I know they're out there.

Cheers!

The Oscars, I guess

I'm not a movie buff. In fact, most movies I just pass by. But tonight when we happened to be watching the red carpet show prior to the Academy Awards and it hit me. The red carpet us just like Pinot Noir. Which was really funny because I had already planned on opening a Pinot for tonight's dinner.

Pinot is everything the red carpet is: Red (of course), soft, sexy, velvety, luscious and in the best cases complex.

Tonight, we opened a 2005 Landmark Kanzler Pinot Noir....I bought this a couple of years ago and managed to put it away in my cellar and forget about it. It has developed beautifully. The nose was packed full of aromas like blackberry, plums, black pepper and little hints of smoke, redwood bark and barnyard - all pleasing smells. In the mouth, the wine is velvety, packed full of flavors and has an extremely long finish.

Landmark is steeped in history. Its roots are from the John Deere tractor family and was founded in Windor in the Russian River Valley. But today, you will find the winery and tasting room at the Northern end of Sonoma Valley. I actually happened to visit them this week. I was surprised and pleased to see sheep out in front of the tasting room....

The sheep eat a lot of the weeds that are not good for the vines. This only works in small vineyards, but can be very effective. They also leave behind some great fertilizer!

The reason I opened the Pinot Noir tonight was because my wife was making a new dish....

This pasta was absolutely restaurant quality. First she roasted a whole head of garlic along with tomatoes sprinkled with salt pepper and a little sugar for an entire hour. The smells filled up the whole house and were fabulous. I had also just finished baking my weekly sourdough and those aromas were still filling the air too. In addition, there was some fresh basil and mozzarella. All of these came together to create the perfect pasta. It paired splendidly with the Pinot we had opened. It was a good night.

Next time a big event comes on T.V., think about what wine might pair with it. It just might lead you to open a bottle and enjoy it!

Cheers!