Grant P Taylor 2015 Pinot Noir Central Otago: This is brilliant Kiwi Pinot Noir. Stuffed with ripe boysenberries and tart cranberries, it runs through the full range of red and black fruits from the time you crack the capsule until you pour the last dribble.
Read MoreSokol Blosser 2013 Pinot Noir Estate Orchard Block Dundee Hills: This is much too young to open now. Had I only known! This is a feisty kiddo now that needs some time to settle down and expand its horizons further.
Read MoreLieb Cellars 2013 Sparkling Rosé Reserve: Impressively vinous, this pale, peach-colored sparkler is made of two-thirds Pinot Noir and one-third Chardonnay. It smells of rose petals, honeydew melon and fuzzy peach skin.
Read MoreI’ll never say “No” to Burgundy, especially red Burgundy. Love me some Pinot Noir! Just to offer one reason, these three wines are each strikingly different in both style and price point. Burgundy offers more diversity than most of us expect.
Read MoreThis unusual, 100% Pinot Noir Sekt has fine and dainty bubbles. In fact, they are so fine and the wine is so vinous that I chose to sip the wine from a white wine glass rather than a flute.
Read MorePinot Noir isn’t an easy grape to grow and it isn’t an easy grape to vinify either. Combine those two points with low yields and you have a wine style that tends to be pricey, wherever it hails from. Plus, Sonoma isn’t an appellation known for its bargains, whatever the grape variety may be. So, when I recently purchased a dozen Sonoma Pinot Noirs under $40, I was particularly pleased to find these three bottlings under $25.
Read MoreCopain Wines mix European stylistic sensibility with Californian fruit. To add a layer of complexity, these wines are made in Healdsburg, one of Sonoma’s sweetest towns, yet none are made with Sonoma fruit. Alas, it’s hardly the first time something in the wine world has seemed contradictory. What is utterly clear with Copain Wines, however, is that they are supremely delicious.
Read MoreEntirely different from this artisan’s heavenly vintage 2002 bottling I tried in Austria in 2012, I was a bit at a loss as to what to do with it, even with a vibrantly acidic seafood dish.
Read MoreDinner’s wine list is immense, so we knew we would find something we’d both love that would suit both dishes equally well. Burgundy beckoned, but it was as glaringly expensive as it usually is.
Read MoreThe unassuming and ultimate wine guru host Aldo Sohm just opened a wine bar with chef Eric Ripert. The duo has long worked their Midtown magic at Le Bernardin, which connects to the wine bar by underground passage. In this chic yet comfy space permeated by 60’s, 70’s and 80’s tunes, you can feast on wine selections geared to the geek, yet not foreign to the main-streamer.
Read MoreThe reds from this difficult, low yielding year are compelling and well worth the investment of money and time. Nevertheless, they are charming today. The whites from the Côtes de Beaune can be tricky as they tend to show the effects of hail strike more overtly with hints of tannin.
Read MoreThis is a charming vintage that is ready to enjoy immediately. Given the unusually cool vintage, the wines are lower in alcohol. They are not, however, lacking in ripeness. Reds and whites are equally compelling, and most wines will be best earlier rather than later.
Read MoreValue and splurge coexist in this deep collection, so peruse if you have the time. The Ryland Inn presumably inherited the cellar of the restaurant formerly inhabiting its space, accounting for its nice smattering of back vintages, including from regions other than you usually expect – namely Burgundy and Bordeaux.
Read MorePinot Noir, its clones and selections fascinate me. It’s a quixotic variety. For as much as I read about them, I’d never heard of the Wrotham Clone (pronounced Rootham) until now.
Read MoreHas Sean Thackrey done a 180°? This was my impression when I tasted the 2010 vintage of Pinot Noir Clone 114 from his new Cassiopeia project in the Wentzel Vineyard.
Read MoreChassagne-Montrachet Pinot Noir tends to be lean as the soils are quite high in limestone, and this trait was emphasized by the vintage’s cool weather.
Read MoreBonneau du Martray is the only domaine in Burgundy today that makes exclusively Grand Cru wine. Its vineyards sit on the very hill that produced wines loved by Charles the Great. That hill is called Corton
Read MoreLast week I met Davis Bynum. Davis was one of the modern pioneers of Russian River Valley. (The Russians who settled there in the early 1800s planted vines before the Gold Rush of 1849.) In fact, Davis was the first to produce a single vineyard Pinot Noir from the area AND indicate its origins on the label.
Read MoreMy dining companions promptly answered this question. Both hold Ph.Ds. and both are German Pinot Noir, or Spätburgunder, enthusiasts. Another dinner date with wine geeks….
Read MoreFiguring out where these clones come from is a bit like researching a family tree before the internet. There’s a fair bit of uncertainty amongst the researchers themselves, so where does that leave the rest of us? Luckily, the chart makes it pretty easy to cross-reference with its column titled “Also Known As”, in which almost every clone other than the Dijon clones show at least one other name. From the US Perspective, the source of Martini 58 is Louis Martini in the USA. From the New Zealand Perspective, the source of Clone 13 is UC Davis, USA. The Australians indicate two origins for their G8V3: UC Davis, USA and Switzerland. Now that we’ve figured that one out, let’s look at the David Bruce Clone. Apparently it was cultivated first by Paul Masson and then by Martin Ray in the US…but way back when, it immigrated from somewhere in the Côte d’Or.
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