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2009 Rhys Pinot Noir Bearwallow Vineyard - USA, California, North Coast, Anderson Valley (4/15/2012)
Popped and poured, followed over approximately 1.5 hours. On the nose, this offered up scents of ripe black cherries, blue fruits, cola, pickled ginger, herbs, and showing it’s oak by way of vanilla, caramel and mild spice notes. On the palate, sweet black cherry, blueberries, cola, ginger, fresh picked herbs and caramel. The acidity here is excellent, and much needed to counterbalance the ripeness of fruit. Tannins are moderate, but very drying, resulting in a clipped finish. I’m sensing a bit of heat on the finish as well, which is surprising as I think this is 13.9%. Check in on day two shows no improvement. Qualitatively, this wine is well made, which is how I derived my score, but if I had to rate based on my own personal enjoyment, I would be somewhere around 88. This is not my style of pinot. (90 pts.)
Thanks for your note, Andrew. I had this wine in January in a blind flight with other 2009’s from Anderson Valley, Volnay, and Chambolle. I liked it a lot, and think it has a great future. Different strokes for different folks.
Indeed! Like I said, very well made, just not my bag. For the record, the only other Rhys pinot I’ve sampled is the Family Farm, which I enjoyed a great deal more than this. For me, this is too far on the dark fruit end of the spectrum for my preference in pinot. I prefer brighter red fruits.
I drank this with Andrew and agree completely. It is really well made but just not my bag. From the 2 bottles that I have had, I certainly enjoyed the Family Farm more and scored it 92+pts. I was exactly the same score wise with Andrew on the Bearwallow as well…90pts for quality but really an 88 for my palate.