Community Tasting Note

wineberg Likes this wine:

Friday, November 30, 2012 - Decanted for 3 hours.

Big smack of leather, baking spices, cola, hint of kirsch. Noticeable acidity. The wife had trouble picking a flavor out of it...It grew on me as the night went on, and after we ate.

It's been 8 months since I've had this, and with all the wine tasting I've done this year, my palate and rating scale have changed a bit since then. I've moved a bit away from the full big new world style of pinot. So I'm taking this down from my March rating to line up more with my revised scale...it's a good wine, but there's nothing that really jumps out at me, and it's not a very good QPR. I had the $25 Rivers-Marie Sonoma Coast Pinot last night, which I gave a 90, and I do think it's the better wine. Of course both the Aston and the RM are the same winemaker, Thomas Brown. As I noted in my last Aston TN from March, I thought the RM Pinot was more in the Burgundian style, just a nice, subtle, well balanced example of Pinot Noir, while the Aston is just much more new world. I still feel that way about them. If I was going to introduce someone to Pinot Noir, I would reach for the RM over the Aston.

Will improve with a few more years in the cellar, or give this a few hours decant at least.

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