It’s pretty cool when people say nice things about your business, what you do and what you create. We like to let our wines speak for themselves and not chase scores or awards but sometimes when a wine shines it compels others to rave and they choose to honor the experience with a rating, medal or badge. These methods of praise make it a little easier for humans to relatively compare a wine in our minds to the many other options out there. It’s simple and succinct, but wine is always subjective and everyone’s palate is different. Regardless, we are always grateful when our wines are enjoyed and today we are happy to share with you one of the accolades bestowed upon our 2009 Pinot Noir from Sonoma County.
Positive Reinforcement
The 2009 Windsor Vineyards Pinot Noir Sonoma County recently scored a 92 and a Gold award, out of 367 wines at the 9th Annual Pinot Noir Summit held in San Francisco in February. Tasting comments included, “Fragrant aromas of ripe black cherry and sweet vanilla scented spice. Well-balanced tannins and bright acidity carried depth of fruit.” The process involved in this competition is very comprehensive and focused. It includes tasting all wines blind, having them tasted by at least two tasting panels and limited to a maximum of 32 on each day among other procedures. The final phase, called the Pinot Noir Showdown, includes a public blind tasting of the final 64 wines, which included our 2009 Sonoma County Pinot Noir. These are separated into two tables of 32 and wine-loving consumers taste wines blind to see how their palates align with the judges.
However, positive comments and constructive feedback don’t have to come from official tasting competitions and are often even more appreciated from trusted colleagues and friends. We like to bring the internal winemaking team together to review our wines often to ensure we are keeping the level of quality we aspire to and see how some of them are progressing through each vintage. Last week eight of us, including winemaker, Nancy Walker, sat down and blind-tasted 22 Windsor Vineyard wines. The same 2009 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast was the highest scoring wine of the tasting proving that even we really like this wine! It’s always a good sign when winemakers and employees drink and enjoy the wines they make.
The Grape Skinny
Pinot Noir is the renowned red grape of Burgundy, France, which is its native origin. It can be identified by the term “Bourgogne” on the wine label or any of the appellations (AOCs) within the Cote de Nuits, Cote de Beaune and a few in Cote Chalonnaise. Pinot Noir is also a variety that is allowed when making Champagne, along with Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. “Fickle” is a term often used to describe this delicate grape since it is very inconsistent in regards to color, flavor and aroma and deeply dependent on its vineyard location, the climate and producer. Benefits of this capriciousness is that the grape can significantly reflect vintage variation and express the vineyard site, which can be difficult to determine during blind tastings.
More challenges abound once the grapes reach the winery. Extended skin contact, via a process called “cold soaking,” is often required to achieve the optimum level of color and phenolic stability since there are lower levels of anthocyanins (pigment) in the thin skins. Pinot Noir is also known to ferment at warm temperatures for longer periods of time than desired. For this reason, it is sometimes fermented with an addition of whole, uncrushed, clusters, which will act like ice cubes keeping the temperature in check.
Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate which makes many vineyards throughout Sonoma County ideal locations. This allows for more controlled maturation in the vineyard for optimum flavor and aroma development while keeping good acid levels and preventing over-ripeness. The main attributes to think about with Pinot Noir is perfume and texture. The lower to moderate level of tannin and significant level of acidity allows the aromatics of the wine and mouthfeel to be more distinguished. Look for aromas like cherries, plum and strawberries, violets, lilac, cinnamon and truffles, just to name a few.
If you are a certified Pinot-phile, tell us about the best Pinot Noir you ever had in the comments below.
