WTN A couple pinots: Reverdy, Loring, Ken Wright, Swan

[Jenise]

Also served, and tasted before these, were a 1978 Bourgogne from a name I've not seen before and which had a lovely nose but no fruit, and a corked 99 Latour Beaune.

2002 Francois and Pascal Reverdy Sancerre (pinot noir)
Loire Valley
Acridly weedy on first opening, but it opened to show some cherry notes with passion fruit and a bit of animale on the herbs. Would never know it was pinot if I hadn't read it on the bottle. Nobody flat-out loved it, but it was fun to taste and talk about.

1999 Ken Wright Pinot Noir
Oregon
Served blind as a mystery wine. The game was over in two questions from me: "Oregon?" and "98 or 99?". Obviously, it was typical of both: flowers instead of spice, resolved tannins, medium color with fading rim, some stewed fruit flavors. Passive storage shows accelerated development, but quite pleasant.

2001 Loring "Clos Pepe" Pinot Noir
Santa Rita Hills, California
Vivid black cherry and plum nose jumped right out of the glass. Good weight with sweet, effortless fruit that was frankly rather welcoming--finally, a wine we didn't have to work for. A slight vanilla note made no secret of the oak, but it integrated well. Very good.

1995 Swan Estate pinot noir
Sonoma, California
Bing cherries, black plums, sweet fennel and iodine here. Still noticeably tannic but the fruit's open and showing well. Overall, amazingly youthful for a 10+ year old pinot--it has years to go.






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Jenise, I've enjoyed several Sancerre (or Chavignol) Pinot Noirs from the Cotats. One was called Bourgogne rouge but was in appearance and flavor more like a rose' wine. They also reminded me of Gamay. How did the Reverdy strike you in those comparisons?

[Jenise]

JC, the Loire pinots I've had have been so few and far between, it's hard to make any intelligent generalizations. I'm fairly sure none had the passion fruit element, though, which was attractive and offputting at the same time. It wasn't so much disagreeable as foreign to the pinot experience, though I vaguely remembered having noted that quality before in wine. Racked my brain all night and this morning trying to remember where, and only just this second did it come to me: it was in a Sine Qua Non. And a few months later, in another wine that was either SQN or from the same geographical neighborhood, can't remember which commonality was the case. Really odd. Is that something you've run into?

I'm fairly sure none had the passion fruit element

Interesting. I've had lots of Loire Pinots (given the usual reaction of the wine-drinking public to Loire Pinots, sometimes I feel I'm verging on Paul B. terrority here ) and I can't say I've ever gotten passion fruit out of any of them either. The elements I typically notice are cherry, roses, cinnamon and, occasionally, sandalwood, along with bright acidity, and a combination of light body yet plentiful flavors, at least in the better ones. At least it made for lively discussion.

[Jenise]

made for lively discussion

Definitely. The worst thing a wine can be is boring. One that comes out of left field because it's so different but is also interesting and tasty? There are too few like that.

I guess weirdness has its virtues!

Jenise, I have to go sample some passion fruit before I can recognize its taste in wine!

[Jenise]

JC, I'll bet you can buy some passion fruit juice at a health food store. Say, I went looking for the names of the wines I remember having detected passion fruit in, and my searching on the old WLDG turned up both in one description from a large grenache tasting:

16. At every tasting there’s one wine that makes everybody go “What the @#$#?”, and tonight it was this black monster. Blackberry, blueberry and a cactus leaf/passion fruit prickly-ness. Bears no resemblance to Grenache as I know it but I love it. Upon finding out it’s the 2000 Alban Central Coast, I do that hand-slapping on forehead thing cuz I now connect to the last time I encountered that same cactus/passion fruit thing, and that too was a 2000 Central Coast made by Alban, the Pandora. It’s a great wine but it’s a heretic Grenache, so I give it a 3rd place A.

Interesting (at least to me) that neither other time was it a pinot.