TN: Rasmussen PinotNoir Carneros '88....(short/boring)

Tried the Pinot w/ Casey Fri night, w/ very low expectations:

  1. KentRasmussenWnry PinotNoir Carneros (13%; kentrasmussenwinery.com/) Napa 1988: Dark color w/ some murky browning; strong smokey/rather Burgundian/mature PN/pencilly quite complex not at all tired nose; lightly tart pencilly/cedary/rather Burgundian fully mature PN some toasty/smokey/Fr.oak graceful/elegant slight metallic/aged gentle/smooth rather complex/Burgundian flavor w/ light gentle bit drying tannins; very long/lingering smoth/elegant/graceful quite Burgundian smokey/Fr.oak slight cherry/PN complex finish w/ light gentle tannins; not at all tired or dried out but a quite lovely fully mature quite Burgundian PN that is just quietly fading into the sunset. $20.30 (K)

More Rasswirdle from TheBloodyPulpit:

  1. I had expected this Pinot to be totally dead. It was not. Just a little old lady in her dottage that is in the twilight of her yrs & quietly fading into the sunset. Both Casey & I were amazed that it still offered up some pleasure.
    Kent started his wnry in 1986, making Chard & Pinot from his Estate vnyd deep into the Carneros in a tiny garage wnry on the property. When I did a visit w/ Kent, I took an instant liking to him. A sort of smallish man, he was wearing these bib overalls. He looked exactly like a little leprachaun that you could picture out in vnyd, leaning up against a vine, pipe in his mouth, smoking some of that funny stuff that winemakers smoke. We have had occasional interactions over the yrs. He now lives full time down in Berkeley.
    I have, of course, followed Kent from the very start. Fell in love w/ his early wines and did a visit w/ him at his family vnyd deep into the Carneros, when his tiny wnry was located there. He specialized in Pinot & Chard grown on the Estate.
    The early Rasmussen wines tended to be made in a reductive fashion and I started to coin the term the “Rasmussen stench”. But they always aged out of it and became beautiful wines.
    Kent reminds me a lot of AdamTolmach. Neither are what you would call marketing geniuses. In fact, “anti-marketers” would be more accurate. Which is why his wines are not easy to find. He has no marketing program and I buy them only when I happen to stumble upon them on a retail shelf.
    He also makes wine, from purchased grapes, under the Ramsay label, named after his wife, Celia Ramsay, a very highly regarded folk muscician in the EastBay area. And a tiny amount of wine under his Esoterica label, which I gather is no longer being made.
    Great wines, great people…they should be better known.
    Tom
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Over the last few months whilst his son was living with them, Kent worked his way thru all of the Pinots that he’s made. Here’s what he found:

[quote=“Kent”]
86, 87 - Both still fabulous. I think that the 1987 was the best PN I ever made…which is funny because it went through a horrible funky period right when we released it and I took it off the market.
88 - +/- - nice, but very old
89 - Very very good. Another interesting issue. I have always thought of 1989 as the only BAD vintage in Napa during my 45 years as a winemaker (there have been a few mediocre ones however). The issue with 89 was that we had a horrible storm in mid September (5 inches of rain in 5 hours!!!). Until then it had been a picture-perfect harvest. Pretty much everything swelled-up (most everyone dry farmed in those days), blew up and then rotted. HOWEVER the few grapes that had already been picked (including this PN) were fantastic.
90 - no stock
91, 92, 93 all dead and gone
94 - still nice, but teetering
95 very very good on two bottles and pretty so-so on a third
96 and 97 (We made a “regular” and a “reserve” both years) - all were still good, but not great
98 - wonderful and holding
99 - ok
2000 - crap (I always say that vintage 2000 had the shortest possible run as “vintage of the century”)
01 - nice but teetering
2002 - nice
2003, 2004, 2005, all nice and holding
2006 and 2007 - Both very good, but showing signs of not holding much longer.
2008 - no stock
2009 and 2010 - both still lovely and holding well.

What is interesting in this is that, other than the run in the early 90s, all these wines were still good drinking plus-or-minus. It says a lot about Carneros PN!!! Sadly, Carneros has tarnished as a PN appellation in recent years. It is too bad, as I think it has a lot more legs than some of the current favorite appellations, especially in Sonoma…but as we all know…in the wine industry marketing is often more indicative of quality than reality.[/quote]

I was amused by his comment on marketing. From a guy who was sort of an anti-marketing guy.
Tom

Thanks for the notes Tom - and I always enjoyed Kent and his enthusiasm for what he did.

Yep, Carneros Pinot ‘had it’s day’ for awhile but really has been ‘forgotten’ vis a vis other AVA’s west of it. Too bad - but my guess is that there are still plenty of beautiful pinots being made there . . .

Cheers