2003 Arcadian Dierberg & Two 2005 St Innocent Pinot Blancs

  • 2003 Arcadian Pinot Noir Dierberg Vineyard - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley (12/26/2011)
    Had over two nights. Cork left out. A big wine. Complex. Stems, tomatoes, citrus and oak. This wine really hasen’t toned down. Big fruits. The tannins seem to have softened substantially and I am missing them a bit. A bit of heat on this. A juicy wine with lots of acid and fruit. Holding up fine but not sure if the development will improve it. Torn on what to do with my last bottle. (89 pts.)


    A tale of two bottles. Dagblasted plastic corks! [swearing.gif]
  • 2005 St. Innocent Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (3/12/2011)
    This wine is till holding on although it is transforming into an older wine. I would keep these longer but I worry about the plastic corks. Showing some oxidization on the nose. A nice quality to show some change on this wine. The fruit and acids are toned down so the wine has a creamier quality with secondary notes. Probably time to drink up. (90 pts.)
  • 2005 St. Innocent Pinot Blanc Freedom Hill Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (7/5/2011)
    This bottle did not show like the last one. Too oxidized, creamy and a bit distracting.

Cheers,

Jason


Posted from CellarTracker

I purchsed several bottles of the '09 SI Freedom Hill Pinot Blanc at the winery in late 2010 and opened my first bottle about a year ago. A very enjoyable wine. I hadn’t planned on letting these age much and it sounds like it is better to drink them sooner rather than later.

Hmmmm, that’s a pretty disappointing note on the '03 Dierberg. A bottle I tasted last spring was absolutely gorgeous, with lots of room to improve in the cellar … of course you may have felt the same about the bottle I tasted as the one you tasted – that damn varying mileage!

Yeah I think they would hold up well but for those corks. I have some magnums of either the PB or Pinot Gris that have real corks and I think they will do fine. That said, I think these were meant and made to be drank early.

Jason

Yeah I have had this wine a lot and I like it, sometimes love it but there is a element that is just to in you face for me to just flip over it. I’ll leave my other bottles be. Like a said the wine is not fading IMO.

Jason

The last time I had this was at lunch at your office. We all noted some stemminess, but it added to the complexity. I have 1 bottle remaining too, and maybe at this point no reason to not let it reach a decade of age before trying it.

I’ve been very impressed by '03 Arcadian wines recently, including the Dierberg one year ago. My cryptic TN…

“12/10: Great wine, very Arcadian, long minerally finish. Slight reduction, blew off soon.”

So obviously I did not notice the in-your-face-ness that you did, as that would not jive with my “very Arcadian” comment. One bottle remains, maybe this year, maybe next year.