Our Monday night dinner group enjoyed another fun evening with some great food and service from Ca Dario Montecito while blind tasting 5 fun and intriguing wines:
2021 PATIENT COTTAT ANCIENES VIGNES SANCERRE- blind; this 100% Sauvignon Blanc comes from vineyards that are 30-45 years of age; it has less than 2 gpl of RS, but enough to include it in the notes as there was a bit of sweetness perceived late on the palate; it had nice acidity in the range of 4-5.3 gpl; thanks to the one who brought this and has brought a few other SBs, it was fairly easy to identify the varietal, but I struggled to determine its origin and after just having blind tasted 5 from Northern Italy, this seemed quite similar enough to call it such, especially from Fruili; the nose had some mineral accented lemon grass, lime, tangerine and grapefruit which continued on to the back end while being delivered in an oily, feel good texture; the sweet/ honey note was mild and embellishing; this was an impressive and tasty wine that was very food friendly.
We now poured and blind tasted 4 Pinot Noir that could be from anywhere in the world:
2011 WILLIAMS SELYEM SONOMA COAST SONOMA COUNTY PINOT NOIR- my bring and therefore not blind; when I went to pull a wine for this dinner, I came across some recently purchased bottles of this that were add ons to many that we have enjoyed at home; at first, I was not sure this was the wine, but after nosing through the flight, it was pretty obvious; the color was a cloudy, dark red raspberry and the nose and taste was replete with more of the same along with some red cherry which was additionally enhanced by a streak of spice and a bit of talc, later on, a nice touch of strawberry came in and it was another splendid bottle.
2013 KESNER KING’S RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY SONOMA COUNTY PINOT NOIR- blind; made with whole berry inclusion and native yeast fermentation from only free-run juice; aged 16 months sur lie in 20% newer French oak barrels; the nose immediately suggested this had a lot of Brettanomyces, the 4-ethylphenol type, that gives off the barnyard, band aid, horse stable type notes that I more often find in Burgundy than new world wines so I wrongly called it Burgundy; for the first 20 minutes or so, it dominated, then a bit of some goodness showed up but not as much that was needed to overcome the brett factor. Bottle variation.
2021 LIQUID FARM S B C SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PINOT NOIR- blind; this comes from some choice vineyards in SBC broken down by 28% Spear Vineyards; 25% Kessler-Haak, 19% Sanford & Benedict, 17% La Riconada and 11% Radian; it is made with stem inclusion and aged using some new French Oak barrels; following its youthful, vibrant, dark red-purple color came aromas of a bowl full of cherries; the taste profile had talc, cedar and sweet and sour cherry as it remained more fruit forward and as I see it, just needs time to balance out; it’s very good now with promises to be total winner down the line.
2018 PATZ & HALL SONOMA COAST SONOMA COUNTY PINOT NOIR- blind; the fruit for this blend was sourced from 18 different family owned vineyards; it had a very dark serious purple color; the nose and taste was very fruit forward with lovely red cherry most prominent along with accents of coffee, cedar and dark chocolate; this was a really big wine that was full bodied with lots of depth and complexity; I never would have guessed this was from Sonoma Coast as my experience has been that most are very much more soft and easy and elegant; another benefit from tasting blind.
Cheers,
Blake
