Community Tasting Note

• Arinbraghe wrote: 72 points

  May 11, 2010 - Maybe I should just tattoo the words 'Booze Bag' on my forehead; at least then there would be a reason for me to taste wines like this one. 15.3% stated alcohol by volume for those of you keeping score at home, and believe me when I say that Pinot Noir cannot successfully hold 15+ degrees of alcohol. In contrast to the Brewer-Clifton wines I recently struggled through, this isn't even readily identifiable as Pinot Noir- its dark, forbidding color and opacity make me think of barrique-aged Syrah at least, and possibly even a Bordeaux variety. Spooky. The obvious bulk and extraction of this wine make it oddly easier to hold on the palate than the Brewer-Clifton, but only because there's more material for the alcohol to hide behind. Don't get me wrong, this is still a bloody hot mess, and the fruit is downright ugly: prunish, clunky, treacly, and black, the wine drinks more like a poorly reduced sauce than it does decent Pinot Noir. After swallowing (or in my case, spitting), the wine gets the last laugh as rising vapors of ethanol assault your sinuses, driving the sur-mature fruit flavors ahead like some grotesque forced march. This is yet another over-ripe, over-alcoholic, over-extracted, over-everything Pinot Noir of a style that has a strong following in some quarters. At least it must, because otherwise they'd stop making them, no? For god's sake tell me they'll stop making them!

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