Some currants and other wild berries on the nose; light bodied palate with crisp acidity. Smooth finish. Not overly ripe or complex. Enjoyable with salmon. Not really in my wheelhouse but a well made, afwe Pinot.
Living in Seattle we get really good salmon, with high fat content…it has turned me into a Cabernet or Cab Franc with salmon fan, mostly left bank Bordeaux, like Pichon Baron, or PNW Cab Franc to pair with it, Savage Grace Franc is particularly good pairing.
If you go back to the original BD Kelley Fox offer which thankfully remains for all to see, you will see that I tried to warn all the folks clamoring for the Mirabai that the other offers were the better bet.
I even received non-assailable validation;
Marcus Goodfellow
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Re: Select: Kelley Fox Wines * BD11 Offering*
#51 Post by Marcus Goodfellow » Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:45 pmMitchTallan wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 1:02 pm
For all of you bemoaning the limited Mirabai, fwiw I think the Momtazi and Coury are the better value plays here. The Mirabai is the basic catch-all bottling and is very nice but…What he said.
But that said, a) to appreciate the Mirabai bottling, it helps to have a solid background in tasting Oregon pinots and b) it is bound to show a bit more with a few more years of rest.
But yes, it is a basic bottling and nowhere even close to the heights of KF’s premium bottlings. The higher shelf bottlings share the same overall personality but loads more of intrigue/complexity.
If you don’t like the Mirabai, I would not bother spending good money for the premium bottlings.
there is definitely a serious complexity jump between the Mirabai and the others. Personally, I think there is even a jump between the 18 and the 17 (17 has a little more seriousness to me for the Mirabai).
Definitely agree with Mitch though, the Coury was a serious deal!
I think it’s a nice wine and I certainly don’t begrudge spending $29 a bottle on it. If you follow my posting history at all you probably know that the vast majority of the wines I drink (>90%) are Burgundy and Champagne so domestic pinots have a high bar to contend with; I have only had a few that I would buy again and they’re usually not particularly good QPR. I have half the bottle left so I’ll post my day 2 notes tonight.
Agree with Mitch. The Mirabai is a solid entry level Pinot. The Coury (the 2017 at least) is a much better and more interesting wine…worth the extra $. IMHO.
RT
At $30 shipped, I thought it was pretty darn great (91-92 in my book). Maybe I got lucky in that it’s stylistically in my wheelhouse - it was up against a $40 Sta Rita Hills PN from a well known producer and the Mirabai blew it away.
I haven’t tried anything else from Kelley Fox yet, but that will change soon.
I ran into a bottle of this while traveling and thought it was decent, and well made, but nothing I would look for again. I will look for some of her other bottles.
We finished the other half of the bottle tonight. It’s a nice well made wine. Just not really to my taste. I opened a bottle of 07 Hudelot Bourgogne later on tonight which I much preferred.
I would suggest holding one of the remaining 2018 Mirabai bottles for 8-10 years and see what happens. Kelley’s entry bottles from 2012 and 2013 at Scott Paul still have a long way to go.
James
I had a 2012 Mirabai a couple of weeks ago that was quite tasty. It had good flavor intensity, but not much depth. My thought on the initial note was that (i) 2018 is too young to get much out of the wine, although I realize that Michael pounds village Burgundies from recent vintages and (ii) the Mirabai is unlikely to ever have that “sappy” depth and structure that a good Burgundy will have, so if that is what Michael would respond to, he is thus unlikely ever to get a lot of pleasure from a Mirabai.
I have a number of the vineyard designates from Kelley Fox, but I haven’t tried them yet because they are from recent vintages and I think they are too young for my tastes, so I cannot comment on whether they will prove to measure up to a Burgundy on the sappy/structured dimensions.
I agree regarding depth and structure but the big reason it wasn’t as much for me was it was much cleaner on the nose and palate than, say, the 2017 hudelot Bourgogne I directly compared it to last night. This isn’t really a negative, just an observation. I generally get some rusticity from burgundy that I tend to not get from new world Pinots.
I agree it is clean (not a negative for me): the fruit, sous bois and even the earth are clean. I haven’t had the 2018, but the 2012 had a lot of sous bois and earthiness, so if you were getting mostly bright fruit, you might get additional elements with age.
I had a 2012 Grivot Vosnee Romanee tonight for the sake of comparison to the 2012 Mirabai I had a couple of weeks ago. Similar flavor profile, but the Grivot’s fruit was, to use Tanzer’s word, “musky” and not as bright as the Fox. The Grivot was deeper, broader, fleshy even, and a lot more tannic (very dry on the finish). I marginally preferred the Grivot, but I could probably go either way depending on my mood, and the Mirabai was half the price.