Community Tasting Note

• RajivAyyangar wrote: 85 points

  July 1, 2015 - 2001: A Wine Odyssey — Berserker Offline @ The Palace (The Palace Steakhouse, SF): Summary:
  A correct New World Pinot with some complexity, elevated alcohol, and great purity of fruit.
  
  Score: Around 8.5
  
  Visual:
  Clear, bright, medium-minus concentration ruby with no rim variation. No gas or sediment, moderate viscosity.
  
  Nose:
  Excellently ripe warm red cherry tone, with very slight reductive character and faint barnyard aromas. There’s a very light oak influence that I picked up after some time. Maybe 10-20% new oak.
  
  Palate:
  Medium bodied, with elevated alcohol (13.5? no - actually 14.6%, but holds it well). Savory, ripe red fruit, with a nice purity to it, as well as a slight burnt/reductive character. Acid is high, and tannins are diminished.

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6 Comments

• Chris@77 commented:

  8/8/18, 2:42 PM - I'm curious how the wine was stored if you are the original owner? Reason is it sounds a bit flat as if it wasn't damaged but didn't live in a 55 degree world. The vibrancy seems missing. My interest relates to owning younger bottles.

• RajivAyyangar commented:

  8/8/18, 3:01 PM - I was not the original owner. I believe this came from a friend's cellar, straight from the mailing list.
  
  There wasn't overt oxidation, but certainly the vibrancy had decreased (as one would expect from 14 year-old pinot.
  
  A few thoughts:
  1) This may be an awkward age for Dehlinger since there wasn't defined tertiary notes yet, but the primary fruit wasn't super expressive.
  2) I'm not the biggest fan of new world pinot - and I'm not especially attuned to the nuances as they age. I could be missing most of the picture here. If you like them while they're young, I'd say you'll probably like them at this stage - the fruit character was evident and structurally it was well put together.

• Chris@77 commented:

  8/13/18, 4:22 PM - After more than a decade of Bordeaux then Burgundy, CNdP, new world PN are only disappointing relative to developing the flavor palate of aging incl bottle bouquet. A small few do as evidenced by Rusty Gaffney's (princeofpinot.com) tasting of "cellar queens" a year plus ago. I cellared a couple that should (Calera), disappointed with tannin after 1-2 years, drank them up. Top burgundies don't typically display massive tannin except tough Pommard/Cortons. I no longer have the years nor the patience. e.g. After >10 years of Swan Trentons I concluded softer/easier, not more complex. Love the flavors, no need to age. Drink when ready. Aging is tricky, reminds of Bohr's quote ... "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." Thanks for taking the time to respond.

• RajivAyyangar commented:

  8/13/18, 5:21 PM - I've come across very few new world pinots that seemed to have acquired tertiary integration and savory complexity with age, but they are beautiful:
  
  - 1995 Robert Sinskey Pinot - Los Carneros
  - 1997 Clos Saron Pinot 'Once upon a time'
  - 2001 Testarossa Pinot Garys' Vineyard (an Ed Kurtzman wine)
  - 2008 Windy Oaks Estate Pinot Noir Diane's Block Klein Family Mountain Vineyard

• Chris@77 commented:

  8/17/18, 11:33 AM - What's interesting about the 4 wines you experienced with bottle development is they are from different micro climates/soils/geology, different vintages, and winemakers. Trying to understand this I mentally extrapolated from Bordeaux and Burgundy (CNdP similar) where different a micro climate, soil, exposure, age of vines leads to varying degree of development. In Bordeaux it's the deep gravel of the Medoc crus, in Graves the type of soil/rock with only Haut Brion, La Mission, and Pape Clement having the complexity of minerality. In Cote d' Beaune Corton distinguishes and Chambolle was once called the Volnay of Cote d' Or for a reason. I have neither the education nor experience to have any inkling of what's going on, much less the years to figure it out. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

• RajivAyyangar commented:

  8/19/18, 5:26 PM - It's difficult to say what happens with age. Various age-derived components (e.g. acetaldehyde, acetic acid) can combine to alter the perception of fruit in unpredictable ways. Tannin polymerization changes the structure of the wine, which in turn affects the integration of aromatics. Fruit diminishes, revealing secondary and tertiary aromas.
  
  That said, the soil type is generally impossible to isolate as a factor, despite all the romance of terroir.

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