TN: 2007 Biggio Hamina Cellars Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard

WINE TALK
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  • 2007 Biggio Hamina Cellars Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard - USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley, McMinnville (10/25/2009)
    Intriguing vegetal/earthy aromatics paired with a silky texture and light-medium weight. On the palate, nice combination of fruit and spice lurking beneath the steely structure of whole cluster fruit. A little weird right now, but with lots of potential a few years down the road.

Posted from CellarTracker

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We were going to have this with some salmon tonight. Sounds like it needs more time. Maybe I’ll have to buy another to cellar.

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John, I don’t doubt that this wine will improve and integrate with some time, but I think it’s open for business now, especially with a little air. If you’re curious about it, I wouldn’t hesitate to open one tonight, and since it’s got the elegance and balance of the '07 vintage, I think it could be a nice pairing with salmon.

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Just a clarification-- I think Steve and I had very similar impressions of this wine, but where he called it “vegetal”, it wasn’t green. It wasn’t bell peppery at all-- it was woodsy, loamy, earthy, spicy… like a cinnamon stick and a nutmeg seed buried in a pile of compost. And that’s a good thing. There’s plenty of fruit there too, and I see very good things for this wine a short way down the road. It’s quite enjoyable now with a bit of air, but it’s going to be killer in a few years and I found a stash of it on sale at the grocery store [dance-clap.gif]

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Wow, that sounds right up my alley! I’ll have to buy a couple more to put away.

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Smells just like a mushroom that grows up here in our neck of the woods, called Matsutake. The tell tale smell of the Matsutake is red hots when you break the stem and this wine has that right up front. I love the nose. It does taste like it smells but there is an added flavor that I was surprised by. I taste grape kool-aid which is not bad just an auto recall from childhood. I like this wine and am feeling bad we didn’t save it to drink with Wetrock this week. I don’t think he is a big Oregon Pinot fan but this could convert. It is going to be a fun vintage to check out because it was a less ripe year and thus there is more of the cinnamon/nutmeg, mushroom, forest floor that I love! Thanks Todd!

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Do you gather the Matsutakes for cooking? I love Matsutakes and they’re generally pretty pricey.

-Al

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Oh yeah, we gather them for cooking. Last year my son got into mushroom gathering and I tempuraed them and they rocked! They can overpower a dish quickly. John put them in a beef stroganoff and the mushrooms dominated. This wine smells just like them, so good!

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Pretty much agree with Kimberly’s assessment, minus the grape Cool Aid comment, but I could see what she was referring to. Loved the elegance and balance on this. Really spoke of WV Pinot with its mushroomy spice, and light, etherial flavors. Once again, it reminds me of the 97’s with their lean, lazer focus- more about the complexities than actual fruit. Very clean and well balanced with no real oak apparent, though I could sense a tiny bit of maple wood, maybe FF. Nice Job, Todd.

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Thanks guys. I enjoy this wine and it has been and will be tight for a bit more. Let’s say it likes air and being open for a day or two, a good candidate for decanting. The Momtazi vineyard always has a wild note to it and it made sense to lean hard with the whole cluster, 90%. I would look at year six and seven being really sexy down the road. Only one way to find out.

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Thanks for the note. I liked this a lot when Todd shared it with me. I think it had been open for 1 day at that stage. My thought was that it would develop with more time. I would assume the grape coolaid element would fade a bit.

Jason

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It was killer last night, which was either night #3 or night #4.

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Dr. J liked it too, noventa puntos amigos.