We tried several PinotNoirs last night at Steve's, including these two:
1. Drew PinotNoir WeirVnyd/YorkvilleHighlands (14.5%) 2010: Med.color w/ some bricking; rather pencilly/toasty/oak some cherry/PN/bit smokey rather mature nose; bit dried out/tired rather pencilly/oak/bit cedary light cherry/PN flavor w/ light gentle tannins; med.long rather pencilly/toasty/oak light cherry/PN bit tired finish w/ light gentle tannins; a fully mature PN & then some but has faded some & not very thrilling.
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2. Dom.Romanee-Conti Romanee-St.Vivant (13.5%; 18576 btls; MeBaD; Wilson/DanielsImprts) 1991: Very dark color w/ light bricking; very strong rather fragrant/perfumed cedary/pencilly/Fr.oak/smokey very strong black cherry/PN some earthy/dusty/OV rather classic Burgundian nose; fairly tart/tangy very strong black cherry/PN bit earthy/dusty strong toasty/oak lovely bit complex flavor w/ some strong/chewey tannins; very long/lingering strong black cherry/PN/earthy bit loamy strong toasty/pencilly/oak classic Burgundian finish w/ some chewey tannins; a pretty classic of what I recall as Burgundian wine.
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. RedBurgundy has long ago fled my wheel-house because of the $$'s and Calif is what I mostly try anymore. Back when I first started tasting wines in the late '60's-early '70's; I would regularly try high-end Burgs. You could get the lesser DRC Burgs for the mid-'teens to low $20's. But they soon escaleted outta my price range & I had to settle for Bertagna & Dujac & other lessers. I've probably not had a DRC since the late '70's. This DRC was brought from his cellar by SteveSterbenz to share in our Pinot tasting, which included a few other lesser known RedBurgs.
This DRC was my favorite of the tasting & remarkable by the structure & tannins for a 30 yr.old red wine. It showed the classic character of what I used to know as RedBurgundy w/ a strong toasty/oak signature. That said, I was a bit underwhelmed by this DRC. I would have expected it to show soaring aromatics & more complexity & greater depth of flavor. It was a good wine, a very good wine, but not what I'd expect of a 4-$$ figure wine. The storage conditions of this wine was impeccable. It should be mentioned that we followed this over only a 30-40 min period. It might have gotten much better w/ longer exposure to air.
Tom