2004 MACPHAIL TOULOUSE VINEYARD ANDERSON VALLEY MENDONCINO PINOT NOIR- youthful in color, this is a nice fruit laden Pinot with especially fresh strawberry flavor expressing early on and some red cherry following up with a sprinkle of spice; pleasing on the palate; good wine, showing well now.
2004 SONOMA COAST VINEYARD SONOMA COAST PINOT NOIR- quite a contrast to the Macphail as this is much more bold and intense, giving some cinnamon toast, sweet cherry jam which continues on and on; very tasty and still young and very vivacious.
2005 BREWER- CLIFTON RIO VISTA VINEYARD PINOT NOIR- there may have been some storage/ shipping issues here as I`ve had this wine before and it shined; not this one; browning color on the edge, it had some cooked flavors of maple syrup and prunes which override some decent black cherry flavors.
2005 DIERBERG SANTA MARIA VALLEY PINOT NOIR- I`ve gained great respect for this producer for both there own Pinots and those made by others from their vineyards; this is good Pinot; dark purple in color, it has some massive red and black cherry throughout, good structure and great length and is blossoming now with a promise to be around for a good part of another decade at least.
2005 WALTER HANSELL SOUTH SLOPE VINEYARD RRV PINOT NOIR- here`s another producer I have a lot of respect for especially for there Pinots and Chards from the 70s and 80s, but this was disappointing; starting with the nose, I got some toasty oak overwhelmed by a lot of Brett which dominated from then on; I could not get past it and moved on to the next wine [another set of notes]
.
Cheers