2012 DeLoach Pinot Noir [Russian River Valley] Served at 63F, no decanting. A light bodied and pale red colored wine. To me, it instantly screams ‘pinot noir’ as well as red fruit RRV typicity. I don’t drink much pinot, and when I do, I look for the candied ones from this region, that I’ve enjoyed more than the serious earthy ones from other parts of the world. It’s a nice change up from the heavier old world wines we tend to drink, but the SO doesn’t like it, which I attribute more to it being pinot, than anything else. For a presumably widely available ‘supermarket’ $20 pinot, its solid, and should fit the bill. Perhaps fans of the grape, region would enjoy it more, and rate it higher. I’ll give it a B for now.
Considering where the winery had fallen due to I believe financial issues, the Boisset family (who are old world France) has done a decent job in returning the winery to putting a fair product back on the table.
Thank you for the nice note Arv. I would invite anyone visiting the Russian River to stop by and see how much has changed since the Boisset Family purchased De Loach in 2003. We have some great tastings, including our by appointment Taste of Terrior experience, where guests can taste some of our great Burgundian wines next too our Russian River wines. Please drop me a PM for further details.
Cheers!
Tom Blackwood
Director of Retail Operations
Boisset Collection
We finished the other half of the bottle last night, and I liked it even more.
Thanks Arv,
We make it in a fairly accessible style with fruit from BCD (adjacent to DeLoach on Olivet), Heintz out towards Occidental and Becnel off of Sweetwater Springs road (not far from Westside Road) being the major players in the blend. 2012 was a very abundant harvest so we ended up needing to use some closetops for the fermentations due to space considerations and as such backed off extraction in order to minimize any excess bitterness from pumping over. I think this resulted in a touch lighter style for us, but still a very tasty one.
Glad you liked the wine,
best,
Brian Maloney
Winemaker
DeLoach Vineyards
I had the 2014 De Loach ‘Maboroshi Vyd’ PN [RRV] over the last few nights, with salmon each time. This feels like it was made with a light touch. Pale in color, a little zip, some cranberry type of flavors. Might tilt toward the AFWE camp? It’s ok, more of a food wine. For the price, a little disappointing. I’ll give it a B.
Hey Arv,
Thanks for posting the note, sorry it wasn’t in your wheelhouse, Maboroshi tends to be one of my favorites out of the vineyards we work with. That said if you’re looking for something with a bit more weight from our portfolio, the DeLoach Estate should be in your wheelhouse, its quite a bit richer/riper in style, with the fruit being sourced from right around the winery on Olivet.
cheers,
Brian
Over a couple of nights I had the 2018 DeLoach ‘Block 1950’ Pinot Noir [Sonoma Coast] with salmon. This is a wine that was created for a restaurant group (Legal Seafood) which went under, and thus became available at retail. The Block name - from what I understand - is just a reference to when Legal’s started, not any specific vineyard or site. And given that the back label cites it’s ‘cellared and bottled by DeLoach’ it’s presumably just contract juice/wine, and not their more desirable SVD or estate sites. Still, whatever it’s origins might be, maybe its the vintage or my tastes, but I quite liked this 13.5% abv example. It’s light bodied, aromatic with cinnamon, orange peels and then cranberry/pomegranate fruit on the palate. No tannin, but a good bit of verve. It seems like a sensible commercial blend for a fish grill’s house red. Of course I didn’t taste this side by side with other examples mentioned upthread (and years ago) but I feel like I like this more. If one sees it, likely a strong bargain, and it might please the AFWE. It gets a B+ on my scorecard. Sealed with a VINC agglomerated cork. No sediment.
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When I was in school, Legal’s used to have a concession shack in the student center, and offered a good (and fast) clam chowder lunch on drizzly days. Decades later when I next ran into one of their locations, at an airport, I had another chowder – which sucked. And after landing and deplaning, the credit card used for payment at Legals had likely been been photographed by the waiter, as there was a pile of very fast fraudulent charges all designed to exploit the hours I was incommunicado. The bank said this was pretty common actually.