This is the first time I have tried an Evening Land wine. Was initially interested in finding a chardonnay from them but found this 2019 Seven Springs pinot noir instead. I was drawn to this wine as I used to buy significant Seven Springs pinot noirs from St. Innocent around the turn of the century and loved them. This wine was purchased about 2 months ago and has been stored at wine refrigerator temperature since. A duck breast with berry sauce and wild rice dinner was on the menu a few nights ago and decided this wine would work well with it. Pulled from wine fridge and opened at a cool 56F just before serving dinner. Poured this brilliant garnet wine in the glass. Absolutely no bricking as expected. On the nose there was a very faint hint of red berry & plum fruit interlaced with a floral & spice note. In the mouth the red fruits carried through but were also a bit muted because of the moderate oak spicy tannin and wine acidity. This wine is not far from a beautiful balance and will reach it when the oak integrates more in the coming years. Really good length at this point. Definitely a food wine that enhanced the duck breast in berry sauce and wild rice. Not a sipper wine in my opinion at this point. Only half the bottle was consumed on night one. With the extra wild rice on hand and scallops in the freezer we made a shellfish dinner on night 2 of this wine. The Evening Land pinot noir had opened up over a couple of days and the red berries and now violets aroma were easily perceptible. In the mouth the tannin had softened a bit and the fruit profile was leaning more towards the red plum flavor for me. Acidity was still evident and length was still good. Worked fine with the scallops but there was no enhancement either way. I preferred the wine on day one as I sensed a more complex fruit flavor mix. My assessment is this is a very fine pinot noir with the right proportions of fruit, acid, & tannin that has a bright future in about 5-6 years time and maybe longer. Will be buying a few more and storing to see how they develop.
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I really like what I’ve had from that vineyard.
Looks like there are at least 3 wineries(Evening Land, Failla, & Walter Scott) making pinot noirs out of the Seven Springs vineyard. Would be fun to do a side by side from each of the wineries for a given recent vintage.