UPDATE WTN: The Weird St Innocent PN (Freedom Hill) UPDATE

2004 St Innocent Pinot Noir (Freedom Hill Vineyard)
Light color. Odd nose. Could not place it. I don’t think it was VA and I don’t know enough about EA to make a guess. The only aroma I could clearly place was dill. Flavor gets even weirder. Not much to enjoy here. I decide to decant ½ the bottle and re-cork the rest. Decanting didn’t help much. Finish was bitter and again…weird. Vegetal and herbaceous in a bad way.
Next day much of the same but becoming more offensive.
Can’t say Freedom Hill is one of my favorites but I hope this was an off bottle. Has anyone else tried this?

Jason

March 10, 2007
I wanted to follow up on this wine because despite all we have discussed here with the issues surrounding it, I still felt my bottle was flawed. Glad to say that the bottle I had last night was not flawed and I would consider it a bargain at the price Mark V. sold it to the club members. Wonderful nose and front palate. The texture worked very well. Not a wine of great depth but it worked well with food. By the finish the oak took over.

Maybe my first bottle was cooked (I think they came in different shipments). I hope not because that means I need to figure out which bottles came in that shipment. Sadly I think it was the shipment with my Shea Mag.

On another note, check out the picture of the synth cork (Mark used this because he didn’t think it was a long ager). The lip that touched the wine looked like it was melted or something. I have never seen that before.


Cheers, Jason

[David M. Bueker]

Now you've made me curious. I will dig out my bottle of the '04 Freedom Hill and open it. Since it has fake cork I won't feel like I am commiting infanticide. More to follow next week.

I look forward to your thoughts.

You may already know this stuff but I am including a quote from Mark V.

It is important to realize that the '04 PN Freedom Hill was significantly phyloxerra affected. Struggling vines can produce a more concentrated and intense wine, but phyloxerra infection is more than just a struggle; it is a death march and not a pretty thing. The affected wines do not have the capacity to deliver the nutrients throughout the growing season, especially in the critical final weeks just before harvest. We had attempted to exclude the fruit from all plants that looked to be affected, but it was obvious that the phyloxerra was affecting the nearby vines also.
I was going to blend all of the '04 PN FHV in to the villages cuvee, but decided at the last minute that it would be a good choice for educating WineClub members and discounted the price to reflect my concerns about ultimate quality and longevity. It does not have the depth of structure compared to previous FHV's and will probably not age as well. As a curiousity/educational wine for the WineCLub members and priced substantially lower that the other '04 wines ($25 vs $36), it seemed like a good choice.
Finally, all my wines are focused on eating, so please enjoy them with flavorful and substantial foods (I like flavor and make wines to match). Those foods will serve to soften the tannins and bring out the multiple layers of aroma/flavor that I work so hard to capture.

Jason

Jason, Based on the picture, I don't think the cork was melted, but either the cork was mis-aligned in the corker and got scrunched out of shape while being inserted, or the bottle was mis-aligned.