Community Tasting Note

• Chris@77 Likes this wine: 86 points

  November 19, 2016 - Somewhat shocked at the high scores because this wine lacks richness and complexity with below to average finish. This is a good workmanlike PN, pleasant but nothing special. It has adequate to good PN flavors, albeit simple, reasonable acidity, mild tannins, uninteresting but average finish. I would score it lower if there were flaws. There are none however, certainly nothing to distinguish it. It's worth buying at the Costco price, not too many bottles. Not worth rebuying. For $10 or less there are much better alternatives in PN, more so in SRhones. This is on par with a lesser Savigny at a lower price, missing the old vines. As such, worth buying but not much.
  
  I've noted the 'score' escalation in Cellar Tracker, appears to be compressed to about 10 points in a 100 point system. Since I 'grew up' with 20 point scoring, e.g. Broadbent, I find this amusing. Parker invented the 100 point scale however, his 85-86 point wines were worth buying, and he rated many wines below 80 (check the old ratings for Pichon Lalonde, one of my favorite wines before moving to burgs). CT users, are you "using" the 100 points?! This is not a venue of tasting only top wines, dissimilar to Tanzer. This tasting note is not the forum to pose this question but I lack the interest in seeking another. Anyone reading this, please pick up the gauntlet.

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3 Comments

• McMalbec commented:

  2/20/17, 5:36 AM - Not trying to be argumentative, but please indentify several ten dollar Pinots that are better. I don't see many in my market, with the exception of discount grocery stores. I haven't opened this Cristom yet and paid twice that much so I would like to set several of your alternatives side by side for tasting. TIA.

• Chris@77 commented:

  2/20/17, 5:56 AM - McMalbec ... Rickshaw 2013 for one. Was sold at Costco for $9.50. Chilean, haven't had a recent one. Admittedly, it is difficult to find low priced pinots worth drinking, and I don't do it often, many lower priced like Meiomi too fruity sweet. If you want to play in this space, suggest start mining Chilean, most aromatic from Patagonia area. Otherwise, drink CdR or find low priced Vacqueras. I have respect for Cristom wines from the past, was quite disappointed in this one (maybe a poor bottle but it wasn't flawed), even for about $18-19 at Costco. To make support your point I've stopped trying to save any $$ with PN, buy favorites direct from wineries because I now only have 100 bottles of temp controlled storage, down from 400 of the 70's-80's. Wines must be very good in the value order ranking to enter and remain for years.

• Chris@77 commented:

  5/12/17, 5:13 PM - McMalbec:
  
  I'm not your wine buyer but right now Costco is selling the 2015 Palon Vacqueras for 11.8X. It's a nice wine and I would prefer it to drink than this one. Pinot noir it is not, but it is a good value (disclosure: I think I bought the Jefferson Cv at Costco for about 18 and change, would rather have the Palon). Nothing wrong with the Jefferson, just not interesting. I would rate them about the same, maybe even a point higher for the Jefferson even though I would not prefer it. Your choice but wanted to flag a wine I thought would be interesting. Cheers.

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