TN: Copain 2007 Monument Tree Pinot Noir

2007 Copain Monument Tree (Anderson Valley) Pinot Noir: I served a bottle of this blindly to my brown-bag group Thursday. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d tasted this at the winery in December 2009 and liked it enough to buy a couple of bottles. Wells Guthrie sent us home with the remains of the bottle. Later that evening in S.F. the wine showed some candied/cough drop fruit, which I don’t like, and I feared it might morph into just another candied New World pinot.

Not at all. There was some faint wet cardboard note at first that made several of us fear TCA, but the wine did not seem to have the suppressed fruit you’d expect with TCA and the cardboard note didn’t intensify, so I think it must have been something else.

This is fairly tight at first, but there ample sour cherry there. Though it was a relatively ripe year, the balance is perfect – good acidity with ripe but not at all over-ripe fruit. Not much of any secondary evolution yet. “Ripe but not heavy-handed,” I wrote. The Burghead in the group thought it was a Cotes de Nuits. Someone else guessed a Spätburgunder since I have a habit of trying to fake out the group with Spätburgunders.

Bottom line: I suspect this is a riper profile than Wells is aiming for now, but it’s first-rate and I think it will develop nicely for at least another five years or so. I’d give it about 90 now at what seems like a transitional stage. I wish I had more than one additional bottle. I think it will be interesting to monitor over time.

[Corrected typo in “transitional.”]

John, working through a bottle of this over the last few nights. Would agree with you about the wine being bigger styled, but the sustaining part of the wine that keeps it reeled in, that’s the tarter red fruit. You called it sour cherry above, which is fair. My note below captures your thought, just on a parallel street.

• 2007 Copain Pinot Noir Monument Tree - USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (9/6/2013)
  I looked at pjhr’s note before I started to log this one, and he’s on target, although I would not call the finish ‘simple’. I found the same cherry, raspberry flavors, with a hint of root beer, moderate weight and plenty of acidity to lift the fruit. Drinks great with a little air (gave it about 2 hours). Have plenty for tomorrow to check back and see if it changes…a day later, it did change, to the point of now saying the core of the wine is a bit darker, so black cherry, concentrated pomegranate and red cherry, and zesty herb finish that has good length (where I diffee from pjhr). He’s right about this being tart, what I call zesty but if you can put pomegranate seed, fresh cherry and black cherry into focus, with acidity, that’s what this wine represents. Medium plus weight, so pair with something less delicate, instead a dish containing more intensity to stand up to the wine. Drink window? Hmm. I’d give this another 3-5 years, based on the fruit weight and acidity.

Posted from CellarTracker

That does sound like a parallel experience. For the record, mine had a relatively short decant time. I don’t recall exactly, but I think about 30 minutes. And in the tasting group, it was consume over 20-30 minutes, which may be why my bottle showed as relatively tight.

Popped this tonight looking for something that would stand up to leftover lasagna. All blue/purple cherries and red pomegranates, dense with jammy fruit still at age 12, tannins completely resolved now. Preferred the 07 Baker Ranch we drank a few weeks ago, this is just too domestic even for my heathen palate.

Playing the remastered Keith epic Talk Is Cheap and this wine is harder than that masterpiece.

Tannins completely resolved but hard?

I took my second and last bottle to friends for Thanksgiving in 2017 and they put it away and didn’t serve it.

I mean the fruit jam is harder than Keith’s rock.