Thursday, February 28, 2008

Checking out a little Pinot Blanc

What's Pinot Blanc?

This is one place where the Wikipedia entry is pretty lame. Come on folks! To describe one of the great white wines of Alsace (one of my favorite wine regions in the world) as "a full-bodied white wine" is like calling Pierre Robert "a soft, creamy cheese".

At it's best, Pinot Blanc can be either spicy and round or massively flowery and aromatic. True, when overcropped or poorly made, it's a pretty generic white wine....But the same can be said for Riesling, Pinot Gris, or Chardonnay, too.

Why am I suddenly talking about Pinot Gris? Well, we might have lucked into some really beautiful wine that someone needs to unload to generate some quick cash flow. While we normally do not like to work with wines we don't personally make, this is an exception. The nose is hugely expressive, floral, and complex. On the palate, there's a nice balance of sweetness and slightly perceived astrigency - it'll definitely hold up to those late winter and early spring dishes. Likely, we'll bottle this under the Pappas Wine Co. label. Watch for it in May!

Anyway, tomorrow, we're back to notes about the 2006 Pinot Noirs.

-sb

Monday, February 25, 2008

2006 Pinot Noir Futures tasting

We just held our annual WineSoup&Futures tasting at the winery last weekend. This was the first public preview of our 2006 Pinot Noir blends.

I have to say, the reaction to these wines was phenomenol, even to me (I love them all like children). We had planned for ~ 85 people to attend, but were instead faced with a winery-busting crowd of 105. This lead to a few logistical issues throughout the evening, but Athena and I enjoyed the buzz created by so many loyal customers providing reaction to the wines.

Here's a quick rundown of the 2006 Pinot Noirs sampled:

2006 Stewart Pinot Noir
2006 Athena Pinot Noir

2006 Anderson Family Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Momtazi Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir
2006 Cherry Grove Vineyard Pinot Noir

I'll get some more coherent tasting notes for each wine up later this week as I catch my breath, but suffice it to say that all of these already tasted like finished wines that had been in bottle for 6 months. The 2006 vintage is really amazing - the wines are silky soft from a tannin perspective yet still have the acid structure to remain vibrant. Athena and I have often used "Wow" and "Yum" when tasting during the blending trials.
For more info on the development of the wines, check back here or visit our website (http://www.boedeckercellars.com/).