Our Monday Night Blind Wine Dinner Group enjoyed another fine evening of great Italian cuisine and personalized service as well as blind tasting through 5 wines to further our wine learning experience.
This group has been together almost 4 years and for the first year plus, we had a blind wine theme for Pinot Noir and a sparkling wine and a white wine. We’ve have since changed that up quite a bit, but this time, we reverted back to our old theme so the individual wine assignments for the 5 of us was for 1 sparkling wine, 1 white and 3 Pinot Noir from anywhere.
Here’s some notes:
2020 MICHEL GONET les 3 TERRIORS BLANC de BLANC EXTRA BRUT- blind; disgorged 8/24 and dosed at 4 gpl; following its light yellow color came mild aromas of almost biting acid bearing citrus fruit with lime most prominent before a trace of kiwi and lemon arrived; on the palate, these notes are joined by accents of chalk, saline, minerals and a coat of honey; over time, the lemon becomes more dominant; it had an oily texture with a bit of weight and overall possessed some thrust and lots of finesse. It lacked the power I associate with the bigger houses and I had a hard time identifying it with anything I’d had before; one called it a small grower champagne and most of us had it as a vintage BdB champagne.
2014 DOMAINE PAUL PERNOT BATARD-MONTRACHET GRAND CRU- blind; the color was a deceiving gold brown bronze suggesting this was oxidized and either premixed or had some age on it and I incorrectly went with the latter as the nose and taste profiles were replete with caramel, butterscotch and hazelnut accented yellow peach and apricot fruit; there was some yeasty character and as another stated, mustard greens like notes that prevailed throughout; the texture was a feel good, honey like creamy; unlike most wines, this did not change over time and expressed the same characteristics for over a 1 1/2 hours; I had it as an old new world Chardonnay from Napa; one of the others eventually got to Batard.
2013 AU BON CLIMAT TALLEY RINCON VINEYARD ARROYO GRANDE VALLEY PINOT NOIR- blind; the grainy red raspberry color matched the nose and taste profile perfectly as nice, fresh and ripe red raspberry was dominant throughout with some blueberry in the background; it had a soft and smooth texture and accents of clove, spice and cinnamon embellished it beautifully; it finished on an upbeat and I perceived it to be a 15-20 year old wonderful new world Pinot Noir that I’d like to have in my cellar; as it turns out, I do; our Burgundy expert called it Burgundy as did 2 others.
1995 HARTFORD COURT ARRENDELL VINEYARD GREEN VALLEY RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY PINOT NOIR- blind; my bring and recognized by the process of elimination; double decanted and returned to the large amount of sediment remaining in the bottle; as a result, the color was very cloudy with some very dark red purple and bit of bricking; the nose suggested some age with mature spicy black raspberry most evident with a light brown sugar dusting; later on, some earth, tobacco, red and maraschino cherry and an overall grapey flavor showed up while being delivered in a smooth textured medium; it dried out just a little at the end with the fruit fading out and the tannins becoming slightly more prevalent; I thought it showed good, especially for a 30+ year old new world Pinot, and was happy to have brought it which was done really to highlight the special vineyard the fruit is sourced from.
From the producer’s website: “Arrendell Vineyard sits in arguably the coldest spot in the Green Valley sub-appellation of the Russian River Valley AVA. The vineyard is sometimes referred to as the “Snowshoe Vineyard” because, in wet years, the vineyard manager has had to equip his pruning team with snowshoes to get through a small area of muddy rows. Each year, the vineyard struggles to ripen the fewer-than-two-tons-per-acre crop by Halloween. Often, much of Sonoma County’s Cabernet Sauvignon (the latest ripening red varietal) is picked before Arrendell Pinot Noir.”
Everyone had this as a new world Pinot Noir, one calling it from Oregon.
2007 BOUCHARD PERE et FILS BONNES-MARES GRAND CRU- blind; the dark red purple color was followed by aromas of talc, cola and spice accented red raspberry which continued on all the way to the back end while being carried in a viscous texture that had some weight; it was full bodied with depth and yet had loads of grace an charm; there was no doubt this was Burgundy and a superlative one at that. Most others agreed and we had it as being 15-20 years old; I guessed it to be Echezeaux.
Cheers,
Blake
