2011 St. Innocent Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (18) Avg Score: 89.2 points

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  4/10/2024 - JohnMcIlwain Likes this wine:

  Black cherry, library book that was last checked out during the Cold War, wild violets, iodine, rouge on your grandmother’s cheeks. Home baked spice cake, dusty iron, baked cherry crisp, with sufficiently graceful age and patina for Downton Abbey, but enough verve and electricity for the arc of a garage band’s ungrounded amps. Momtazi always has that surprising energy and zazz; and in the difficult 2011 vintage it surprises with complexity astride all the power chords. Will hold, but damn, I love it now. Wild Thing—choogle choogle chorale—you make my heart sing!

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  9/27/2023 - Neecies Likes this wine:

  Fortunately I didn't listen to myself when we tasted our last bottle in 2016, which I described as difficult, green and "crashing". This one was sublime and apparently just needed more patience. Seven years more was never intentional, but it had great personality (spice, sweetness, funk) for a 12 year old pinot from a poor vintage. A favorite of the tasting.

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  3/14/2021 - UpfromtheCellar wrote: 86 Points

  Blueberry tinged cranberry juice.
  
  I realize that 2011 was a tough year (cold and one of the latest ever to begin the harvest) and that Momtazi is a wind swept vineyard in the middle of the Van Duzen corridor, but still, this is a taught lean wine, and at 9 years on isn't any more forgiving than it was a few years earlier.
  
  Perhaps a valiant effort "under the circumstances", but on a 0-100 scale, valiant only counts for so much..... If you like sour O-noirs then this wine will appeal to you.

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  8/31/2020 - nectar14 Likes this wine:

  Oregon 2011 pinots from this producer have been universally good. This one has a bit more ripeness, but is still very balanced, complex, and structured. Herbal flavors with tart red cherry, some sous bois. Very good stuff.

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  5/17/2019 - Brian Glas Does not like this wine: 84 Points

  Sour cherries. Some acid. Not much fruit. Quick finish.

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View all 18 Community Tasting Notes

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