TN: California Pinot Noir Blind Tasting

WCC CALIFORNIA PINOT NOIR BLIND TASTING - Provence Restaurant, Albany, NY (9/3/2009)

After a fairly disappointing Oregon PN tasting, my regular Albany-area group decided to try California PN. The general agreement based on these 2 tasting is that Cali Pinot is much better.

All wines were served blind. One person knew all the wines and organized the flights. The rest of us knew only the wine we brought, but not which one it was.

The wines were divided into 3 flights, each one served with a course of food.


Flight 1

Wood grilled Duck and Foie Gras Saucisson with French Green Lentils and Pomegranate Drizzle.




  • 1990 Wild Horse Pinot Noir Cheval Sauvage - USA, California, Central Coast, Paso Robles
    Lovely earthy cherry nose. Tart Cherry palate. Fading fast, though oddly a second glass a half hour later has a nose of cream soda, but a finish of very sour cherries. An odd wine. (88 pts.)
  • 1991 Calera Pinot Noir - USA, California, Central Coast
    Poopy nose. Sour bitter crap. Perhaps it’s way over the hill or maybe it was never any good. (66 pts.)
  • 1991 Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir Sanford & Benedict - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Barbara County
    Earthy, mature cherry mint nose. Rich, balanced. Quite nice. WOTF. (90 pts.)

Flight 2
Chanterelle Mushroom and Camembert Beignets with White Truffle Vinaigrette.




  • 2007 Kutch Pinot Noir McDougall Ranch - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
    The color is more ruby than all the other wines in this flight. Has a stunning nose of strawberry and spice. Smooth, silky, lush. Sweet young and delicious. I will wait a year to try another. 92-?? points. (92 pts.)
  • 2007 Siduri Pinot Noir Hirsch Vineyard - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
    Gorgeous nose of ripe jammy cherries. Very tasty but finish is marred by something green. (89 pts.)
  • 2003 Mahoney Vineyards Pinot Noir Barriques de Carneros Carneros - USA, California, Napa Valley, Carneros
    Mint and something sour in the nose. Rich, but has a lot of VA on the palate. NR. NR (flawed)
  • 2004 Etude Pinot Noir - USA, California, Napa Valley, Carneros
    Muted but very appealing nose. Rich, delicious, and complex. Long, mildly tannic finish. This is a great bottle of wine. A true meditation wine. WOTN for me. (95 pts.)
  • 2005 Hanzell Pinot Noir - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley
    A more spicy red fruit nose. Really delicious. Lots of rocks and fruit. The most “Burgundian” wine so far. Excellent stuff. (93 pts.)

Flight 3
Wood grilled sliced Beef Tenderloin with Sliced Beefsteak Tomato with Caramelized Onions and Boursin Cheese Crostini.




Before the wines were revealed, we each voted for our 3 favorites. The Top Ten were:

WOTN Voting

  1. 2006 Aubert, Reuling Vyd, Sonoma Coast
  2. 2002 DuMOL, Russian River Valley
  3. 1997 Anderson’s Conn Valley Vyds, Valhalla Vyd, Napa Valley
  4. 2005 Hanzell, Sonoma Valley
  5. 2001 Williams Selyem, Vista Verde Vyd, San Benito County
  6. 2004 Etude, Carneros
  7. 1990 Wild Horse, Cheval Sauvage, Paso Robles
  8. 2007 Kutch Vineyards, McDougall Ranch, Sonoma Coast
  9. 2007 Siduri Vineyards, Hirsch Vyd, Sonoma Coast
  10. 2003 Mahoney Vyds, “Barriques de Carneros”, Carneros

Afterwards, we had a Dessert Course:
Fig Tart with French Vanilla Crème Fraiche.

Posted from CellarTracker

Ken,

If I would have known the food was so good (based on the pix), I would have gone to Provence while my daughter was in college at SUNY. Thanks for the notes.

Wow, Ken! Thanks for sharing. Your photos of the food are unbelievable.
Very interesting to read all your tasting notes, too.

The food looks wonderful!!!

Piling on, Ken - you did a great job with the food shots.
And thanks for the report on the wines, too.

The Wild Horse in your original post says SB county, but the label says Paso.
The food looks yummy.

Thanks all for the comments on the food shots. I really like taking those.

Dan, don’t you still come up here from time to time. The food has always been good at Provence. It’s the same owners as Milano in Latham. Some time in the last year or so, the shop next door went out of business and they were able to create this room in the back. So now we can have private dinners there. It’s very nice. It even has a full-wall projection TV, so we were able to watch the NBA playoffs during one tasting!

You are correct, Linda. I had caught that before, but missed it this time. It’s an error in CT. As best I can tell, Wild Horse made Cheval Sauvage from Paso fruit with the black horsehead label you see here during the early 1990s. CT shows listings for Cheval Sauvage in 1990, 1993, and 1994, then not again until 2001-2006. The vintages in the 2000s are labeled Santa Barbara County and have a pale label:

If anyone knows more specifics, please let me or Eric know.

Great shots of the food! Love the detail shots.

Thanks Mel. I appreciate all the compliments on the food pix, but especially from you. [worship.gif]

looks like a really robust tasting and eating man! i rarely peek @ my Hanzell PN inside of 7-10 years from vintage, those old vines age really nicely.

I’m curious how you can draw this conclusion, Ken. Your Oregon tasting had 7 wines rated 90 and above, the California tasting 8. [scratch.gif]

That first course looks incredible - it’s 10:30, I just ate breakfast, and I’m getting hungry again looking at it [wink.gif]

Bob, that was the group’s conclusion. I would not have placed the difference as great. In fact, at the end of the Oregon tasting, I could not get the group to vote for WOTN. To be fair, I think only one member of my group pays a lot of attention to Oregon Pinot, so the choices might have been better this time.

That said, none of the Oregon wines really excited me like a few here did. I thought the 2 best wines in the Oregon tasting were from one producer (Ken Wright).

I added a link at the beginning of my first post, for those interested in the Oregon notes.

I don’t know if they will go for it, but I will suggest to the group that we do another blind tasting with 4 of the best from this tasting, 4 of the best from the Oregon tasting, and 4 price-comparable Burgundies. I think that would be interesting.

There was some discussion at both these tastings of which wines were more “Burgundian” and what that really means. About half this group is very active in our local Tastevin Society. Some folks used the term “Burgundian” to mean better. And some people thought the Oregon wines were more Burgundian, but then paled by that standard, whereas the Californian had their own style. Not Burgundian, but quite pleasurable.

Ken - thanks for the notes. We cracked an 02 Siduri Hirsch Pinot last night and it was terrific with a lot of years ahead of it.

Next time, let Jason Hagen, Rich Trimpi or Phil Franks pick your Oregon wines. I assure you it will be an eye-opening event.

How much decanting did you give the older wines? I ask because I just opened a 1986 Acacia Madonna Vinyard Pinot Noir. After first opening it seemed way past it, but with air, the fruit opened and it became a nice mouthful. It took an hour of aeration.

Nice pics Ken, [welldone.gif] it’s been awhile since I have been to Provence, but it has always been a good experience. As I recall they, along with Milano’s, has an extremely reasonable corkage fee too…

Thanks for the extensive write up and pics. I am hungry … and a little thirsty.

Interesting on the WOTN … http://tiny.cc/tqHuV that’s my note.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

I suppose it is interesting when you see a tasting from an area you love and a bunch of producers you wouldn’t purchase. Great tastings all the same.

Cheers,

Jason

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