Pinot Noir Panel Proves Picky With One Stand Out Wine

The KensWineGuide.com Tasting Panel blindly tasted 17 distinctive Pinot Noirs.  Most of the major Pinot producing regions were represented.  The only exception was there were no submissions from Oregon.  Pinot Noir is a funny grape.  It's difficult to grow and difficult to make.  It is also made in “many” different styles – perhaps that is due to the varied growing regions and terroirs or just the grape’s temperament.  Like the grape, it seems our Tasting Panel is equally finicky. The Tasting Panel frequently has varying opinions about the wines and their styles when discussing Pinot Noir – more than any other grape it seems.  There certainly was a lack of consensus most of the time that evening.  However, there was one wine that did capture everyone's attention.  It also won by a landslide, garnering an Excellent score of 93.375.  Which Pinot garnered such support?  It was the 2005 Bianchi “Signature Selection” $25 from the Garey Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley of California.  Why did this Pinot stand out so much?  I think the consensus was that it had something for everyone and a lot of those somethings.  It was smooth as silk and that was very appealing.  It had a very inviting spicy strawberry bouquet.  It was complex and had delicious lush cherry flavors.  It had soft tannins that just ran on and on.  It was just special.  It was the kind of wine that made you yearn for more.  Unfortunately for us, the bottle was empty very quickly.  This wine's scores varied between 96 as the highest score and 89 as the lowest score.  Eight other panelists scored it between 94 and 91.  This wine was impressive!

On the whole, we recommended 13 of 17 of the Pinots.  However, the remaining 12 recommended wines all scored Very Good.  None of these submissions received consistently high scores from the panel judges needed to achieve the Very Good+ level or to reach the Excellent status that the Bianchi achieved.  Which wines were the best of the rest we tried?  Our second place finisher was the 2005 Donum Estate $65 from Carneros, CA.  This wine scored an 88.31.  Donum is the high end bottling from the folks who make Robert Stemmler wines.  They are a very well known specialty Pinot producer.  They consistently perform very well and this offering reflects that.  This wine was very smooth and well balanced with spicy plum like flavors.  Our third place finisher was from Talley Vineyards.  Talley is another premier Pinot producer.  They are based in the Arroyo Grande Valley of California.  This year they submitted their 2005 Pinot from the “Stone Corral Vineyard” $50 from the Edna Valley.  This Pinot scored an 88.125.  This wine was well balanced, rich, and concentrated.  It finished with soft tannins that made it food friendly and would pair it perfectly with a pork tenderloin with a brown sage sauce.

Our 4^th place finisher was a newcomer for us.  It was from Cima Collina in Monterey.  Their 2005 “Chula Vina” Pinot Noir $20 was very well received and scored very consistently from all the panel members.  Their final score was 88.125 as well.  This medium bodied wine was well balanced and driven by its strawberry like flavors with a touch of spicy raspberry as well.  It was tasty and appealing.  In 5^th place was the always Very Good 2005 Goldeneye $55 from Anderson Valley, CA.  This youthful wine scored an 88.07.  It displays spicy black cherry flavors with hints of oak.  This wine’s acidity held it back for a few panelists, but on the whole it was very well liked.  Our 6^th place finisher was Goldeneye's sister wine the 2006 “Migration.” This wine also hails from Anderson Valley in CA.  This wine scored an even 88.0 from the panel.  Given the $32 retail price it's a better deal than the Goldeneye right now.  This wine was smooth, well balanced, and highlighted by its sweet cherry like flavors.  Another good value wine was 7^th place finisher.  This wine was the 2006 Wild Horse Pinot $25 from California's Central Coast.  This wine was also very appealing to the panel as they scored it an 88.0.  This wine was straight forward, but it was smooth, soft, well balanced and had very tasty cherry flavors.  It was a very food friendly option to consider with Chicken Parmagianna. 

The other recommended Pinots were as follows:

#8 2005 Marimar “Dona Margarita Vineyard”Â (Sonoma Coast, CA) $45 (87.875)

#9 2005 Gundlach Bundschu ”Rhinefarm” (Sonoma Valley, CA) $38 (87.875)

#10 2005 Ventana Vineyard (Arroyo Seco, CA) $28 (87.875)

#11 2006 Handley Cellars (Mendocino, CA) $25 (87.625)

#12 2006 Blind Trail (Central Otago, NZ) $23 (87.56)

#13 2005 Marimar Estate “Don Miquel Vineyard” (Russian River Valley, CA) $42 (87.19)

We also had some late submissions arrive, which we tried with a smaller Tasting Panel later in the week.  The clear cut winners from those submissions were the two Pinots submitted by Ken Volk Vineyards.  The 2005 “Santa Barbara County” $24 offering was our favorite garnering a Very Good+ score from our mini Tasting Panel.  We scored this wine a 90.0.  We also liked his 2005 “Sierra Madre” offering $36.  We scored this wine an 88.0 Very Good.  I also tried the 2005 William Seylem Pinot from Russian River Valley $60.  This wine was also Very Good and easy going.  This Pinot will appeal to those who like restraint in their Pinots.  I called it a “white wine drinkers” Pinot.

Finally, there is two Pinot’s that stood out to me at this years NYC Wine Expo.  The first is a fine example of the excellent 2005 vintage in Burgundy.  It was the 2005 Michel Picard Pinot Noir “St. Aubin 1er Cru Le Charmois”.  I rated this wine a Very Good+.    The other wine was the wonderful 2006 Laetitia Winery “Les Galets” Pinot Noir.  This wines was smooth as silk, well balanced, and has wonderful spicy strawberry flavors. This beauty will pair perfectly with grilled salmon drizzled with a lemon butter sauce.

In summary, we found most of the Pinots submitted and reviewed to be very satisfying and Very Good.  We found one outstanding wine that we all agreed was the unanimous winner.  Pinot is a funny grape that makes so many different styles of wine so it shouldn't surprise me or you that we would get so many different opinions of the wines.  Until next month.  Cheers – Ken