Evening Land Pinot Noir 2008

I find it very hard to discover great values in Pinot Noir. Good ones can be found easily enough, but typically if a Pinot Noir is really good it's also really expensive. Every so often I do find an exception to the great value rule with Pinot, and today that exception is Evening Land Pinot Noir 2008.

This very nice Pinot is made with grapes sourced from the Willamette Valley in Oregon by consulting winemaking star Dominique Lafon. In your glass the wine is classic, medium red in color. The nose brings cherry, sour cherry, and strawberry fruit with a subtle earthy element. In your mouth you get much of the same fruit with the addition of some red plum. There is also a wonderful element of spice that makes Oregon seem a lot closer to Burgundy than it is to California. The acidity and subtle minerality brings structure and balance, and the wine has a very nice finish.

Overall, this is some really nice stuff that tastes a whole lot like a very nice Burgundy but without the barnyard. At a price in the low $20's, it is an outstanding value that would pair nicely with grilled salmon or a seared duck breast.

My Visit to the Santa Cruz Mountains Appelation

Recently on a visit to Northern California for my real job, I had the opportunity to visit some wineries and tasting rooms in the Santa Cruz Mountains Appellation. This area is unbelievably diverse in its microclimates. At one point in my drive to my first stop, the temperature changed 8 degrees over the course of 3 miles. As a result of the many diverse microclimates, there is a pretty wide variety of grapes being grown here, although the predominant varietals that winemakers are having success with seem to be Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The appellation itself covers over 350,000 acres and the vineyards range in elevation from 400 to 800 feet. Evenings tend to be foggy and cool with the sun burning off the fog every morning followed by higher temperatures. This allows the grapes to ripen effectively but slowly and results in a rather long growing season with a nice long hang time for the fruit. I should note that although all the wineries and tasting rooms I visited were in the Santa Cruz Mountains, not all of the fruit for every wine I tasted was from the appellation.

My first stop of the day was the only winery I was previously familiar with, which was Bonny Doon Vineyard. They have a very nice tasting room and restaurant right in the heart of Santa Cruz. Bonny Doon can best be described as a not so serious winery that makes some seriously good wines. Their leader, Randall Graham, a UC Davis grad, started Bonny Doon with the hope of making great Pinot Noir, but has since switched his focus to other grapes, most notably Rhone varietals. I tried a number of wines here including a Cinsault and an Albarino, which are pretty unusual for California, but the standouts here were definitely the Rhone style blends. The 2007 Le Cigare Blanc was a blend of 64% Rousanne and 36% Grenache Blanc. Pale in color, it had aromas of pear and melon with decent acidity, and it was a very good, refreshing wine. The 2004 Le Cigare Volant was a wonderful Southern Rhone style red with a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, Carignane, and Cinsault. Aromas of cherry, sour cherry, licorice, and spice worked together to create a wonderful and complex bouquet. In your mouth you got more of the same flavors with an incredibly long finish. This was some very good stuff for only $30 a bottle!

My second stop of the day was Storrs Winery. Here, owners and winemakers Pamela and Steve Storrs are crafting a number of different wines in relatively small lots. Both Pamela and Steve are UC Davis grads with a wealth of knowledge, and Pamela focuses on the winemaking while Steve focuses on the vineyards. This sounds like a perfect marriage to me. Their annual production is about 10,000 cases, and all their vineyards are sustainably farmed. They are big believers that wine is made in the vineyard and that the winemaker just has to gently guide what nature and good farming provides. They are also big believers in the Santa Cruz Mountains as a great place to make Burgundian style Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

During my visit I tasted a number of different wines poured by the very friendly and knowledgeable CJ in the tasting room, but it was definitely the Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs that stood out here. Their 2007 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay was a very good example of the potential this area has for Chardonnay. Pale straw in color, it was aged in French oak for 10 months. The nose was crisp with apple and pineapple and some well done, subtle oak that did not overwhelm the fruit. On the palate you had a nice mouthfeel with great acidity and minerality. The long finish displayed flavors of apple and pear with a hint of citrus. This was a very well done Chardonnay.

The other standout at Storrs was the 2006 Le Manoir Pinot Noir. Medium red in color, it had a great bouquet of cherry and strawberry fruit. On your palate you got much of the same great fruit flavors which were really nicely balanced by a very pleasant acidity. A lengthy finish followed to complete the experience with this very elegant and delicious wine.

My final stop in the day was a little further north at Testarossa Winery in Los Gatos, where I was greeted by the outstanding hospitality and knowledge of Jeanne in the tasting room. All wineries have a story, but this one has a pretty interesting one. Testarossa is essentially a hobby gone out of control for owners Rob and Diana Jensen who started making wine in their home. They slowly outgrew that and a number of other facilities before finally stumbling across the old Jesuit Novitiate Winery in Los Gatos that is one of the oldest wineries in the country and one of very few that made wine right through Prohibition. They now lease that facility from the Jesuits and have their winery and tasting room located there. As a graduate of a Jesuit high school, this place had some added meaning for me. .

The top wines I tasted at Testarossa were both Pinot Noirs. The 2007 Rosella’s Vineyard Pinot Noir was a beautiful light red color in your glass. The nose brought cherry and strawberry fruit with some great spice. On your palate the wine was fruit forward but it had some spice and nice acidity to balance things out. This wine belongs on the Thanksgiving table! The 2007 Pisoni Vineyard Pinot Noir which has not yet been released was also outstanding. It had an absolutely wonderful bouquet that was bursting with cherry and strawberry fruit. In your mouth it had a very nice, elegant structure with cherry, strawberry, and some sour cherry fruit and a very subtle element of spice. Although I think it will need a couple years to fully develop, this has the potential to be an outstanding Pinot.

Well that’s about it for my brief visit to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Not knowing much about the area or its wineries heading into my visit, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the wines that I found.

Albert Bichot Bourgogne Vieilles Vignes Pinot Noir 2006

Unfortunately value and Pinot Noir are not often found in the same sentence. At its best, the Pinot Noir grape can yield wonderful results. When its not grown properly under the best conditions, the results can be disastrous. As a result, most of the great and even plain old good Pinot Noirs tend to be rather expensive. This effort from Albert Bichot is an exception to the rule. Its a very nice Pinot Noir that retails in the $15 range.

In your glass you get a pretty medium red color. The nose is filled with strawberry and sweet cherry aromas with a pleasant herbal undertone. In your mouth you get a very nice light-medium body with a little bit more to it than most California and Oregon Pinot Noirs. The fruit flavors are outstanding with great sweet cherry, sour cherry, and strawberry. Pleasant acidity and mild tannins provide balance and structure. Very nice for a price around $15.

This wine would make a great, not too expensive pairing for a Thanksgiving turkey. I might make some native Burgundians upset with this, but I love Burgundy with pizza. This wine is pretty flexible. It would also pair nicely with salmon, pork, or duck among other things.

Cambria Julia's Vinyard Pinot Noir 2006

Pinot Noir is certainly not my favorite grape in the wine world. Having said that I must admit that it is a perfect pairing for certain foods. There is nothing like a fine French Burgundy to go with a great Thanksgiving turkey. It may be somewhat unconventional, but I also happen to love Pinot Noir with pizza. Finally, it seems that salmon and Pinot Noir were made for each other. Before reviewing, I should note that Pinot is the one grape where I strongly prefer the Old World style to the new.

Last night, salmon with a maple/mustard glaze was on the menu, so I set out to get some nice Pinot Noir. I had heard great things about the Cambria Julia's vineyard, and it seemed to be a potential value at just under $20. Having tried and enjoyed their Chardonnays in the past, I had high hopes for this Pinot Noir.

In the glass, the color of the wine was a very light brick red. The nose had elements of cherry, spice, Cinnamon, and smoky vanilla. All of these were nice, but it just didn't smell like Pinot Noir. On the palate you get cherry and sour cherry, some acidity and a light body. The wine had decent balance to it. In looking for flaws in this wine, there were no glaring weak points. From a technical standpoint, there was nothing wrong with this Pinot, but for me there just wasn't anything particularly right with the wine. This sounds a little corny, but this wine had no soul. It seems to me that it was made in the winery and not in the vineyard.

Although its sad to say, just under $20 is a very low price for what was supposed to be a good Pinot Noir (93 points from Wine Enthusiast). Unfortunately I feel this was money wasted and would not recommend Cambria Julia's Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006.

Domaine Michel & Joanna Ecard Savingny-Les-Beaune Premier Cru "Les Gravains" 2006

Lets start this one by saying that I was able to buy this wine at a pretty hefty discount. This wine typically retails in the $40-50 range, but my good friends at Georgetown Square Wine & Spirits have some great pricing on this bottle, so I was able to get a bottle (well actually quite a few bottles) for significantly less than that. If you can find a deal and you like Old World Pinot Noir, than this is a very nice wine.

Michel Ecard is the son of Maurice Ecard who has a long tradition of making some of the finest wines in Burgundy. Michel ventured off on his own along with his wife starting with the 2005 vintage, and all indications are that all the years he spent learning under his father have paid off.

The 2006 Domaine Michel & Joanna Ecard Savigny-Les Beaunes Premier Cru is a good Pinot Noir that is firmly rooted in Burgundian terroir and style. It is darker in color and fuller bodied than most Pinot Noirs. The fruit is certainly present and pleasant, but the sour cherry and cranberry flavors are very subtle on the nose and the palate. The fruit is nicely balanced by flavors of spice and a pleasant minerality and earthiness that just says Burgundy.

I happen to think this is a wonderful example of what the Pinot Noir grape can do, but I will caution that lovers of New World Pinot Noir might not like this wine. If you like reds from Burgundy it is definitely worth looking for this somewhat hard to find wine. If you like your Pinots from California and the Willamette Valley, then you can probably live without this one.

Pinot Noir pairs nicely with a number of foods. My personal favorite is a nice turkey dinner, but it also goes very nicely with duck breast, roast pork, and salmon.