Community Tasting Note

edwilley3 Likes this wine:

Saturday, December 21, 2013 - I do not understand the negative remarks about this wine, especially the comments from the likes of Meadows. This was my first ever Marcassin pinot noir, sampled just to see what the hype was about. As a major league pinot skeptic, I was prepared to find the wine overhyped, overblown, and not worth the money. I was dead wrong on all three counts. With a full daytime decant (which is the norm for me on blockbuster reds and whites) this pinot was surprising in every way. A stunning concentration of fruit on the nose was combined with a huge wave of perfume coming out of the glass. I will add that a mid-sized Riedel "Overture" red glass was used. I tried a few different glasses and discovered that the taller glass with greater air space over the liquid brought out the most perfume; I would not use a balloon-shaped glass of any kind for this wine. That's food for thought and is consistent with my experiments on spirits glassware as well. Going back to the wine, the nose showed an array of florals including beautiful rose notes and sweet spiciness. The alcohol level was totally unremarkable, i.e. I didn't note the alcohol at all. I wouldn't say that it was sweet per se, but the lusciousness of the fruit gave it a "sweet" flavor appropriate to the really beautiful and complex palate of red fruits. Also, I would not call the wine "thin", but it did have a surprisingly light, finessed mouth feel, while not lacking concentration of flavor. This is something that I specifically appreciate about really well made wines, i.e. with a proper decant they become satisfyingly complex and intense but still approachable and elegant in the mouth. In sum, I was shocked to come to the conclusion that the wine was worth the money. I will admit quite freely that this tastes nothing like a French Burgundy or, say, PacNorthwest pinot. However, I don't consider this a negative at all. These are clearly very well farmed grapes and, at least in the bottle I drank, very well handled as far as the final product is concerned. I look forward to trying more and do hope that I won't end up disappointed like the others here.

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