Bacar Pinot Noir Tasting As he often does, Dave Alexander organized another wine adventure. Ron, Michael, Dave and I ventured out on a Thursday night for a night with the boys in The City. What we found was what we had hoped for, fun and a new wine experience. Rob Renteria, Sommelier at Bacar Restaurant prepared a memorable flight of wines representative or distinctive regions producing some of the worlds best pinot noir grape varietals. The pinot noir flight we tasted consisted of two Oregon, one Napa, a Russian River Valley and one French wine. This was a spectacular representation of regional differences and highlights the emergence of pinot noir in California and Oregon against the gold standard of Burgundy, France. Clearly, it’s the French standard to which many aspire but few can attain. Here’s our take on Rob’s selections: Hamacher ‘H’ Wilamette Valley, Oregon, 2001 Dave Alexander measures pinot’s in relationship to their pairing with salmon. Interesting, Dave expounds on the evolution of his palate, which he equates with the experience of many brothers; stand alone wines in our youth now judged in relationship to their fit with food. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what he’s talking about, when you were just tryin’ to get high you weren’t concern about food pairing. In Dave’s opinion, this wine is the prototypical wine to be paired with salmon, a medium bodied wine that requires a subtle entree. The wine exhibits a spicy cinnamon character. Overall there are subtle compact flavors that won’t overpower the meal. Here we find differences in benchmarks among individuals. Dave thinks about how pinot’s marry with salmon as his frame of reference, Ron likes robust California style wines, while Mike prefers Burgundy. Ron believes this offering was a bit too watery on the mid palate to his liking. Ron feels this wine is representative of the drive to attain the quality of Burgundy and is rests between California pinot’s and Burgundy. Ron acknowledges the improving quality, but believes these wines still lack the depth of flavor he prefers. Andrew Rich ‘Les Vigneax’ Willmette Valley, Oregon, 2001 My boys recognized the high alcohol in this wine immediately. This was the only wine in the flight that was out of balance with forward tannin and a brash, musty character. The wine exhibited an overall light weight with a hint of licorice and beautiful vanilla nose. Ancien ‘Mink Vineyard’ Napa Valley, California, 2001 You know if we picked-up the alcohol on the Andrew Rich we weren’t going to miss this powerhouse! This big boy starts off with powerful forward grapy fruit that displays great depth of flavor. There is a depth of flavor here that can handle Orlando’s Soozle Lamb recipe, pheasant, duck or capon wild game. Ron introduced the group to game/wine pairings long ago, so we know he prefers a robust style pinot that is typical of California wines. It should come as no surprise then that this is Ron’s favorite wine in this flight. We should note here that there are similarities between Oregon and France because they are on one the same geographic longitude. Consequently, the French, including prominent families like the Drouhin’s have embraced Oregon as a premier pinot noir grape growing region. Ron would buy this wine even though the price exceeds his standard pricing threshold. Merry Edwards, Russian River Valley, California, 2001 Ok, this is where there is a departure from the price to value standard to which we as a group aspire. We found this wine to be too simple and watery to our liking. Ron characterized it as ‘whispy’. There are hints of lots of things but nothing you can hang your hat on. The Russian River Valley of Mendocino is an important pinot noir region, but this wine was not representative of the quality we’ve come to expect. Pierre Arniot Morey-Saint-Denis, 1er Cru ‘Aux Charmes’, France, 2000 High quality and small production leads to high prices. This is where we got into an interesting discussion with Rob about ‘terroir’. Rob believes that the scientific analysis tendencies of Americans gets out of hand. While acknowledging the distinct ‘dusty’ character this wine exhibits, Rob feels you just can’t find it in California and Oregon wines to any significant degree when tasting the wines. We agree there is something uniquely French that is yet to be replicated in the US. Ok, let’s call it ‘terroir’. This was Mike’s favorite as it was mine. Perfect balance, showing complexity with strawberry, vanilla and that dusty character not found in the others with a long lingering finish. This is a benchmark wine. Mike would have no problem buying this wine at the price offered. I would too, if I could afford it! How would we characterize the regions represented here? Well, Oregon, light; California powerful; and French, split the difference. Finally, we talked at length among ourselves and Bacar’s Rob and Marcos about the economics of winemaking. Wineries must fork over higher taxes on wines measuring above 15% alcohol. We think that’s good because wines over 15% are overblown, and not age worthy nor improve in the bottle over time. Too many wines today are made to drink early and lack the complexity we’ve come to enjoy and seek in our 30 years of the pursuit of perfection! Bacar
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