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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Drinking window: Drink between 2005 and 2010 (based on 8 user opinions) |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 84.8 pts. and median of 87 pts. in 32 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by SPierson on 3/10/2013 & rated 86 points: Fading rapidly...has never drank as poorly as scored by WS but not what it was a few years ago. (3416 views) | | | Tasted by Keith_kohler on 3/18/2012 & rated 64 points: Cork disintegrated. Strained 3 times to no avail. (3151 views) | | | Tasted by bgreenak on 11/20/2011 & rated 86 points: Drinkable, but clearly past it's prime (3311 views) | | | Tasted by Old Sparky on 8/23/2009 & rated 88 points: Opaque light ruby color. Very fragrant pinot nose with ripe cherry and plum. Expanding fruit on the palate with nice lingering dry finish. (3874 views) | | | Tasted by annerk on 1/3/2009 & rated 91 points: 50+5+12+17+7 On the nose it smells like a New England autumn and blueberry. On the palate blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry with hints of mint. Lovely finish of berries and mint with the mint lingering but not at all overpowering. (4174 views) | | | Tasted by cpowell on 12/31/2008 & rated 88 points: This was the last of my 03 Belle Glos. Not the level of quality as the 02, but what is? This Pinot is still wonderful with deep ruby color, superb nose of flowers with a whiff of earthiness. Some acidity, but not overwhelming. Excellent food wine. (2137 views) | | | Tasted by la turque on 10/12/2008 & rated 91 points: Quite lovely. Sweet fruit, big wine, nice weight and complexity. (2130 views) | | | Tasted by jsebiri on 5/26/2008: this was a very fine bottle , i thought it had much berries and very little harshness as other BG i have had...std pinot nose....this was the best experience from this producer i have had...90 (2280 views) | | | Tasted by winelover1 on 1/2/2008 & rated 88 points: Too tart for me..Not thrilled by it. Lose the wax top.. (2215 views) | | | Tasted by Frank Murray III on 3/11/2007: I'll add to the fray here. FWIW, I really thought a lot of the 2002 when I had it, which led me to buy the 2003. As a side note, the vineyard for this wine is right off 101 just south of Santa Maria. It sits on a corner kind of up a swail and is squared off at one corner by the intersection of Clark and Telephone, as last time I was up that way, I drove by to see it.
This wine is a little odd. It has a little bit of funk and seemed a little cloudy/muddled. The flavors on the wine show a range of slight cherry tomatoe, watermelon, sweet berry and what seems to be some higher oak. It seems to lack definition, owing maybe to that same muddled color. Plan to finish tonight during the Ducks game and add a final note.
Day 2: The nose seems stemmy/stalky. Can't figure out what it is. There are some very nice flavors here, but they are challenged by the wierd cherry tomatoe acidity note so I think I'll just finally give this wine a hands down. Will probably dump the rest and move on. (2592 views) | | | Tasted by bluevespa on 1/31/2007: I don't know what to rate this wine. Served on the blind with an impressive group of high end western american pinots. Picked the best wine of the group. Next time tasted cloudy, disjointed, and nasty. Tasted several times now. ????????????? (2494 views) | | | Tasted by johnwine on 7/1/2006 & rated 93 points: This is a very large style Pinot Noir that you can just chew on. The color is a medium dark garnet, almost purplish, The nose is very floral and mushroomy with dark berries, and a very fragrant spice. The taste is full of black, ripe fruit mixed with wild mushrooms and earthy spice. The finish is eternal on ripe, spicy, black berries and cherries. (1384 views) | | | Tasted by drance on 5/28/2006: HINT, run the sealer under hot water, and it cuts very easily. Save your fingers! Hopefully this wine will improve with age, disapointed compared to the 2002, but improves after a couple of hours. (3577 views) | | | Tasted by Bill in Chicago on 3/18/2006 & rated 87 points: As far a Pinots go, this is an interesting, yet slightly odd wine. In many ways it reminds me of the classic Burgundies. But in my final review, it fell short of my hopes. Yet I will try the other vintages as I find them. The wine was a bit cloudy, and the aroma need time to clear up. After a couple of hours of breathing, the wine was ready. A light to medium body, good flavors of grapes, fruit and earth tones to the taste. The nose was light but interesting in its complexity, offering some different levels of earth and grape. Certainly an above average Pinot, but no knock out. Value for price is fair - I would but this again, but I'm not rushing out to find it. I look forward to trying the '04, which is rated slightly higher. My rating goes like this - Appearance 1/2; Aroma 4/6; Taste 5/6; Overall 4.5/6 = 14.5/20 (Score X 2.5 plus 50 = Parker Rating) 86.25 - 87. (3021 views) | | | Tasted by lalawchick on 3/12/2006 & rated 72 points: Lime and berries - Not a good combo. Had to dump it out. (3170 views) | | | Tasted by sadiebear on 2/23/2006 & rated 88 points: This wine was a bit overly fruit forward, but then again I seem to like the more tannic P>N>.I enjoyed the wine more on the second day! (3199 views) | | | Tasted by Jespo9 on 2/18/2006 & rated 92 points: I really enjoyed this wine last night. A real fruit forward pinot - nothing subtle about it. Paired nicely with roasted chicken. Highly recommend. (3300 views) | | | Tasted by Shiraziste on 1/10/2006: A Caymus Pinot made by Joseph Wagner in Santa Maria Valley.
Firstly, I hate this melted rubber cap on the bottle top, 10 minutes to chisel this away made for an enormously frustrating start to drinking this wine. Chips of red shit all over my kitchen after it was opened required me to vacuum later, not to mention the blood I shed stabbing myself with the corkscrew blade attempting to remove. It looks great, but it's impossible. There's a little red tag one would think would help in removing this as it's more rubber than clay, forget it, you can pull on this tag until you cause a brain hemorrhage, it ain't coming off.
Ridiculous.
When I poured this it was fairly cloudy, it looked flawed or something. The nose was sulfuric, off. The palate would lend one to believe this could still be undergoing a fermentation of sorts, or a secondary ferment.
Aside from this, the palate was sweet and simple, actually the way I just wrote this gives the impression that it's not that bad, but it was.
I had to fight my way through a glass, I suppose I had hoped this would come around.
The next day it was just as gross, candy floss and fuzz.
Avoid ! (4019 views) | | | Tasted by GolferChris on 12/2/2005 & rated 90 points: Spicy, earthy nose with abundant red fruit. Nice weight in the mouth with an elegant structure. Crisp on the finish. (1925 views) | | | Tasted by TomTom on 7/26/2005 & rated 85 points: This wine had a nice bouquet of cherries and roses. On the palate, there was a distinct note of citrus, tending toward grapefruit. Finished with a bit of cinnamon. Certainly not a bad wine, but the citrus flavor was not my favorite. (3298 views) | | | Only displaying the 25 most recent notes - click to see all notes for this wine... |
| Belle Glos Producer Website
The vineyard locations can all be described as coastal, but the climate differences are significant, depending on the amount of fog, wind, sunlight, and soil type at each site.
Each wine is crafted to distill the purest essence of the vineyard into elegant expressions of California Pinot Noir.
Winemaker Joseph Wagner chose the name Belle Glos (pronounced BELL GLOSS) to honor his grandmother, Lorna Belle Glos Wagner, a co-founder of Caymus Vineyards.
http://www.meiomiwines.com/'> Producer website
Meiomi, (pronounced May-oh-mee) , has a separate website.
Prince of Pinot Article on Belle Glos
Belle Glos: Caymus Genes
Belle Glos (pronounced BELL GLOS) is owned by the Wagner family of Napa Valley Caymus Vineyards fame. Caymus Special Select Cabernet Sauvignon, Mer Soleil Chardonnay, and Caymus Conundrum are well know wines, but the winery has a long history with Pinot Noir, producing some excellent examples from relatively warm locations of the Napa Valley (Rutherford) in the late 1970s and 1980s. They even produced a Pinot Noir Blanc wine labeled “Eye of Partridge.”
The Pinot Noir program was revived in 2001 with the release of Belle Glos Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir and the wines have improved every year since. The name comes from Charles J. (Chuck) Wagner’s mother, Loma Belle Glos Wagner, a co-founder of Caymus Vineyards. Joseph Wagner, a fourth generation winemaker whose family’s roots in the Napa Valley date to 1906, has been the label’s vineyardist and winemaker since 2002. Belle Glos is a separate label from Caymus Vineyards, much like Mer Soleil and Conundrum, made independently from wines Chuck Wagner makes at Caymus Vineyards, referred to as “by the Wagner Family” rather than “by Caymus”, but distributed by Caymus Vineyards.
Caymus farms Pinot Noir in three coastal regions including the Sonoma Coast, Santa Maria Valley and the Santa Lucia Highlands and produces vineyard-designated Pinot Noir from the estate vineyards in each region. A fourth Pinot Noir, Meiomi, is a value-priced wine found in wide distribution and restaurants. A distinctive and excellent rosé, is also produced that revives the name, “Oeil De Perdrix,” sourced from the Yorkville Highlands of Mendocino County. The Gambit Series of Pinot Noirs debuted in 2008 at Pinot Days San Francisco. These limited production single-vineyard wines with no added sulfur were intended to offer the rich and voluptuous nature of raw Pinot Noir grapes. I have not seen or heard of these wines since, but they are briefly described on the Belle Glos website.
Caymus acquired a portion of the historic Santa Maria Hills Vineyard in the 1990s. The land, on a west-facing slope of the Santa Maria Valley foothills, had been planted to Pinot Noir from 1972 to 1974, so the vines were almost ancient by California Pinot Noir standards. The vines were own rooted and the clone uncertain, but probably Martini, an heirloom clone that was one of the first Pinot Noir selections to grace California coast lands. I first reviewed the 2001 Belle Glos Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir in the July 7, 2003 issue of the PinotFile, and the wine was generally well received by the wine press. At the time, little was known of the label. Bob Hosmon of the Miami Sun Sentinel wrote, “To say that this is one of the best United States produced Pinot Noirs I’ve ever tasted is not an overstatement... if you’re looking for something truly special, you won’t be disappointed. Unfortunately no website, mail, e-mail or phone orders.” The website is still very basic and offers no opportunity to purchase the wines. With the 2002 vintage, winemakers Joseph Wagner and Jon Bolta (Conundrum) took what was already a low-yielding 76-acre vineyard and reduced the crop even more radically by regular thinning to increase the flavor concentration of the berries. When the grapes were hand harvested, they ended up with just over one ton per acre. The quality was so high and the flavors so distinctive they felt the wine deserved to be named for the vineyard that produced it which was located at the intersection of Clark & Telephone roads.
The 10-acre Sonoma Coast Taylor Lane Vineyard was planted near the town of Occidental in 1995. While Joseph Wagner was in middle school he helped develop this vineyard, clearing trees and rocks from this previously unplanted land, and laying out and planting the vine rows. To get the grapes to ripen in this cool seaside climate, the trellis system was converted to “Trentina,” named after the region in Italy where it originated, which maximizes sun exposure on the leaves. There is a very consistent diurnal temperature variation at this vineyard site which insures a good balance between ripeness and acidity. The first Belle Glos Taylor Lane Vineyard Pinot Noir was in 2002.
The Las Alturas Vineyard is located in one of the highest plantable sites in the Santa Lucia Highlands of Monterey County, at altitudes of 540 to 1,210 feet. The site has warmer afternoons and tamer winds than the northern portion of the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA. This 15-acre vineyard was planted to match various Pinot Noir Dijon clones to different soils and slopes of the vineyard. Yields are kept deliberately low. The inaugural vintage from this vineyard was 2004.Pinot Noir Varietal character (Appellation America) | Varietal article (Wikipedia)
Pinot Noir is the Noble red grape of Burgundy, capable of ripening in a cooler climate, which Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot will not reliably do. It is unpredictable and difficult both to grow and to vinify, but results in some of the finest reds in the world. It is believed to have been selected from wild vines two thousand years ago. It is also used in the production of champagne. In fact, more Pinot Noir goes into Champagne than is used in all of the Cote d'Or! It is also grown in Alsace, Jura, Germany, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Italy, and so forth, with varying degrees of success.
Pinot Noir is one of the world's most prestigious grapes. It is very difficult to grow and thrives well in France, especially in Champagne and Burgundy. Pinot Noir thrives less in hot areas, is picky on soil, and deserves some oak storage.
Pinot Noir, or Blauburgunder / Spätburgunder in German, is a blue grapevine - and, as the German name suggests, the grape comes originally from Burgundy in France.
The grape, which thrives in calcareous soils, is used primarily for the production of red wine, and it is widely regarded as producing some of the best wines in the world. The wine style is often medium-bodied with high fruit acidity and soft tannins. It can be quite peculiar in fragrance and taste, and not least in structure - which may be why it is referred to as "The Grapes Ballerina".
Pinot Noir is also an important ingredient in sparkling wines, not least in champagne since it is fruity, has good acidity and contains relatively little tannins.
The grape is considered quite demanding to grow. The class itself consists of tightly packed grapes, which makes it more sensitive to rot and other diseases.
Pinot Noir changes quite easily and is genetically unstable. It buds and matures early which results in it often being well ripened. Climate is important for this type of grape. It likes best in cool climates - in warm climates the wines can be relaxed and slightly pickled.
In cooler climates, the wine can get a hint of cabbage and wet leaves, while in slightly warmer regions we often find notes of red berries (cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants), roses and slightly green notes when the wine is young. With age, more complex aromas of forest floor, fungi and meat emerge.
In Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary, it often produces light wines with less character. However, it has produced very good results in California, Oregon and New Zealand.
With its soft tannins and delicate aroma, it is excellent for white fish, chicken and light meat. For the stored wines you can serve small game. Classic duck breast is a matter of course, a Boeuf Burgundy and Pinot Noir are pure happiness.
Pinot Noir loses quality by over-harvesting.
Pinot Noir is prone to diseases, especially rot and mildew. Viruses cause major problems especially in Burgundy.
Pinot Noir are large round grapes with thin skins. Relatively high in alcohol content. Medium rich tannins and good with acid.
As a young person, Pinot Noir has a distinctly fruity character such as raspberries, cherries and strawberries.
A mature Pinot Noir, the taste is different. Cherry goes into plum and prune flavors. It smells of rotten leaves, coffee, moist forest floor and animal wine. This must be experienced.
In warm climates you find boiled plum, some rustic, little acid.
If the grapes are over-grown, the wine will be thin, with little color and flavor.USAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson Central Coasthttp://www.ccwinegrowers.org/links.html
http://www.discovercaliforniawines.com/regional-wine-organizations/
http://beveragetradenetwork.com/en/btn-academy/list-of-winegrowers-association-in-central-coast-california-274.htm
Central Coast AVA WikipediaSanta Maria Valley Santa Maria Valley Wine Country Association | Santa Maria Valley Wine Trail |
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