WTN: You can't take them home again (Pinot Noir tasting)

[David M. Bueker]

We’ve all been there – a trip to a wine region inevitably results in buying wines that we thought were outstanding when tasted in situ. Get the wines home and somehow things change. I can personally recall visiting Chateau St. Jean with my wife in 1998. We were treated like visiting royalty, and ended up buying a number of bottles. Some of them were still very satisfying when we returned home, but there were a couple (notably the Sauvignon Blanc La Petite Etoile) that left us wondering what we had seen in them while on site. That wasn’t the only baffling purchase from the trip – let’s not even talk about the Coturri wines – but one that stuck in my mind.

There have been a few wine country trips since then, and each one has had its moments. I’m not talking about the “sympathy bottles,” but the purchases made expecting a positive end result.

This situation was brought to mind due to a tasting I participated in last week. The host had purchased a number of wines while visiting the respective wineries, and recalled how delicious the wines were when he tasted them on site. For the most part our results, from blind tasting, were not so positive.

2010 Meiomi Belle Glos Pinot Noir
Sourced from a local CT shop (some of the wines were local buys to mix things up), this blend of Pinot from Monterey, Santa Barbara & Sonoma Counties was distinctly roasted and very soft. In need of some structure.

2008 Miura Vineyards Pinot Noir
This was just as soft as the prior wine, but also had a bitter cranberry edge to the fruit. It sure smelled nice though – all red fruit and flowers. A frustrating wine for the disconnect between the aromatics and the palate.

2009 Melville Winery Pinot Noir Carrie’s Vineyard
I visited Melville in 2004, so I know how this could have happened. It’s a lovely place, and the wines are quite tasty in small doses. Well a larger pour is not so much fun. It had a ton of VA and some weird, funky elements that made it hard to smell, much less drink. Something had to have gone wrong here.

2008 Samsara Wines Pinot Noir Las Hermanas Vineyard
Supposedly this was a very limited production wine. I sure hope so, as too much of this candied fruit can be hazardous to your health, especially the teeth. Wow was this sweet, with no balancing acidity or other structure.

2008 Lucienne Pinot Noir Doctor’s Vineyard
Ooh…this is nice. Good aromatics that combine red fruit, a little dirt and some lively, floral top notes. There’s structure, balanced fruit, no trace of heat and just an overall pleasurable drinking experience. I went back to this one after the formal tasting & it remained very tasty. This was the group’s wine of the night.

2008 Pessagno Wines Pinot Noir
Tough sledding to have to follow the Lucienne, but even so this did not measure up. This had very little in the way of aromatics, lacking in acidity like many of the preceding wines, and a short, sweet finish. While it was not unpleasant, it had nothing to recommend it.

All in all a difficult evening, but the Lucienne was memorable.

David,
Many a times have I regretted buying a bottle at a winery because the ambience was good and the stars were all aligned! Thanks for the notes. I had a Waveland Pinot Noir (2009) a year or so ago which also originated from the Doctor's Vineyard. I remember liking it a lot.
-Shaji

I have visited Melville twice and Samsara once. When tasting at the winery I prefered the "lowest" bottling of PN from each producer, the estate from Melville and the SRH from Samsara. I have not opened one at home yet.

This problem rings bells with me. There is no doubt that, for me, tasting wine in the company of the man and/or woman who makes them somehow improves their taste if the people concerned are intelligent and sympathetic, particularly if the tasting takes place where the wines are made. I think that I limit my errors by screening estates which I plan to visit by consulting guides where I know and, if necessary, aim off for the taste of the writers or by personal recommendation of people whose taste I trust.

My biggest mistakes were purchases of 3 dozen Savennières from Château d'Epiré in the mid-90s, most of which did not age well (but there was a good one in a recent TN), and purchases of about 2 dozen assorted 1997s from Weinbach which were very flattering in their youth but mostly became dull with age because of low acidity. In the latter case I am particularly to blame for not taking Colette Faller's advice to drink them all young.

I continue to make small mistakes at sip and spit tastings largely because of palate fatigue where blockbusters are present.

Ambience can boost a wine's quality tremendously. Conversely, blind analytic tasting is the cruelest judge. Even the last place wine in many tastings would give pleasure in the right setting. These days, I really only enjoy that kind of tasting either as a way to experience a class of wines or producers brand new to me, or for a controlled assessment of a particular variable (e.g. a vertical of the same wine). For stuff from my cellar, I usually try to rig the odds in their favor when deciding when/where to drink them!

I've had a couple other Belle Glos wines that I prefer over the Meiomi. Like Brian Gilp, I liked the estate Melville Pinot Noir but I think I liked one of the others also but decided at twice the price of the estate wine it was not a good value.

Ambience can boost a wine's quality tremendously.

On our trips to Italy the cafe house wines have tasted like grand cru/first growth. I'm sure that if it were not for sipping the wines while overlooking the Forum Nerva, or the San Gimignano valley the tasting experience would have been quite different.

Ambience can boost a wine's quality tremendously.

On our trips to Italy the cafe house wines have tasted like grand cru/first growth. I'm sure that if it were not for sipping the wines while overlooking the Forum Nerva, or the San Gimignano valley the tasting experience would have been quite different.

I know exactly what you mean. I just experienced a version of that in reverse with an inexpensive Sangiovese from the Marche. Tasted initially, before cooking dinner, with my ITB hat on - sound, balanced, clean, not much there. Then, tasted at dinner with lasagna that made my daughter very happy, it became a jolly quaff, nice intersection of dryness and fruit with the food, maybe a sage/tomato leaf thing emerging in the finish. No doubt it would have been dazzling tasted in a cafe on a piazza in Assisi.

[David M. Bueker]

Well we had a couple that were just plain flawed, but overall I agree that in the right setting (outdoors in the summer with a burger perhaps), a number of the wines would have done just fine.

As for blind tasting - this group has been doing blind tasting since 1974 (I joined in 1998), so I don't think the format is going to change. Heck, I was the first one to spit, and that was in 2002.

While I understand the sentiments behind the comments here, it is also possible that both tasting experiences (the one in the winery and at home or in the blind tasting) are equally valid. Which should make us even more aware of the importance of atmosphere when enjoying our hobby (as well as the severe limitations of blind tasting).

[David M. Bueker]

While I understand the sentiments behind the comments here, it is also possible that both tasting experiences (the one in the winery and at home or in the blind tasting) are equally valid. Which should make us even more aware of the importance of atmosphere when enjoying our hobby (as well as the severe limitations of blind tasting).

Hence the title of the thread.

Yes, but you seem to suggest that the tasting on-site was not the most accurate perception of the wines:

Some of them were still very satisfying when we returned home, but there were a couple (notably the Sauvignon Blanc La Petite Etoile) that left us wondering what we had seen in them while on site. That wasn’t the only baffling purchase from the trip – let’s not even talk about the Coturri wines – but one that stuck in my mind..

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you in this case, since I don't know these wines. But in many cases it could be the reverse. I.E. tasting at home or in a blind format is not very representative of the wine.

But then of course even if our dining rooms/living rooms are warped tasting environments, they are what we have to deal with!

[David M. Bueker]

You're over-reading.

Hi David -

Thank you for the interesting thoughts. I will admit to similar experiences with some bottles that I bought at after enjoying at the winery, and then was less impressed by outside of the winery setting.

That Samsara Pinot does not sound appealing to me at all.