JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  9/16/2017, (See more on JamesSuckling.com...)

  (St. Innocent Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Zenith Vineyard, Red, United States) Login and sign up and see review text.

Burghound

• By Allen Meadows
  Apr-17, Issue #66, (See more on Burghound...)

  (St. Innocent Winery Pinot Noir - Zenith Vineyard Red) Subscribe to see review text.

• By Josh Raynolds
  Oregon Pinot Noir: The Exceptional 2014s and Often Surprising 2013s (Dec 2016), 12/1/2016, (See more on Vinous...)

  (St. Innocent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard Oregon) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Pinot Price Drop, 5/17/2019

  (St. Innocent Pinot Noir Zenith Vineyard) Hello friends. We have outstanding pricing today (best I can see nationally; ignore the half-bottle listings) on a tough-to-source Pinot Noir from a terrific Willamette producer. The only catch: this is a time-limited deal. We get one shot at this, and then it’s back to regular $42 pricing. We’ll place our order on Monday May 27, so that should give y’all plenty of time to get your own order requests in. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “The Zenith Vineyard Pinot Noir is another stunning effort by the highly talented winemaker Mark Vlossak. Showing a deep hue, this Pinot Noir wine opens with aromatics reminiscent of black truffle oil, forest floor, black cherry, black raspberry liquor and suggestions of baking spices. There are bold fruit flavors of black cherry, wild blackberry pie and earthy and savory nuances of black truffles, forest floor, sage and black tea. This shows wonderful balance and depth as the range of mid-palate weight is simply dazzling. While this is already outstanding, I can see this aging well past the next decade. Best 2017-2027. 94pts.” We’ve offered exactly one St. Innocent Pinot Noir previously (the 2010 Temperance Hill, back in 2012), and that’s because they’re fairly challenging to source, never seeming to make it up to Seattle in any significant quantity. They’re also exceptional Pinot Noirs. For lovers of clarity and terroir-expressiveness in their Pinots, Mark Vlossak’s portfolio is tough to top. In the few times I have spoken with Mark, his emphasis is often on terroir and texture. The terroir here is Zenith Vineyard, which for many years was an estate-ish vineyard for St. Innocent. I say –ish because Mark was a partner in the vineyard until 2018, and the St. Innocent winery was sited right at Zenith. All that to say: there has been no Pinot in Mark’s lineup that he can coddle from grape to bottle more carefully than Zenith, and it shows. This clocks in at 13.9% listed alc and opens with a nose combining black cherry, smoky black coffee, and dusty earth tones. It is rich and openly delicious on the attack, with a wonderful leafy character (black tea, tobacco leaf) emerging in the middle. Mark is a master of texture, and this unfurls its polished tannin structure carefully, fanning out slowly and coating every nook and cranny of the palate before you even notice it’s happening. While Mark’s wines can make a lovely cocktail, they really show their best with food, and as we move into the heart of fresh salmon season in the northwest, this had me in mind to throw a slab of sockeye into a hot cast-iron skillet and pour a big glug of Zenith.