2010 Cameron Pinot Noir Abbey Ridge- USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley, Dundee Hills (8/3/2016)
Relatively clean on the nose for Cameron. Very bright and intense raspberry and tart cherry nose with perhaps a hint of VA. In the mouth it’s more of the same with a prominent saline character and a touch of iron. Pretty sappy midpalate with linear acidity that makes this tart almost all the way through. Slightly gamey on the finish but not “dirty” and definitely not poopy, IMHO. As one who has found the Cameron funk increasingly fatiguing over the years, this is right in my wheelhouse as a really enjoyable wine. Tasted over 2 days.
Paul – the salt and iron notes I noticed could certainly be perceived by another as stones. I didn’t want to use the term “mineral” for fear of starting an argument about minerality
As I said, some bottles of Cameron are way too funky for me, so much so that I stopped buying for the last 2 years (except for a case of the 2014 Dundee that bought only because both Alberty and Pottmeyer claimed it was quite clean), but this one was pretty nice. I do think you are right about their being some VA given that I picked it up on the nose and found the palate to be quite acidic, but in a relatively pleasing way given my preferences. So my conclusion is that the flaws you pointed out are probably present but not to a degree that they offend me (especially not the brett; I just didn’t find much here, and I often find many French cab francs hard to drink because of brett issues). And who knows how my bottles differ from the bottles you had at the tasting?
