Don's Gillette's Weekly Wine Blog
Weekly musings from our store's resident wine guru
Don has over thirty years experience in the wine industry. For the last eighteen years his attention has been focused on the growing local industry. Don has a large following of customers who search out his opinions (never in short supply!) on new releases and on what's currently most distinctive on our shelves. Others seek his insights on wineries and trends that are still under the radar. Check back here each week for Don's latest thoughts on various wine-related topics. Read Don's full bio...
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Green is the Valley
Dutton-Goldfield is a favorite stop of mine and it always proves a good bell-weather for the quality of a Russian River-Green Valley harvest. It is an innovative winery, but one with a traditional set of winemaking goals, backed by seemingly endless fruit sources and a talented production team. It does not pander to fashions or to the predjudices of reviewers, but quietly makes lovely Chardonnays and pure, concentrated, age-worthy Pinot Noirs from its diverse and distinctive vineyards.
The Dutton vineyard empire was built by legendary grower Warren Dutton, but is maintained by his two sons. Warren's boys significantly expanded their Father's vineyard management business, and each separately founded a winery. Son John built Dutton Estate, while his brother Steve partnered with Dan Goldfield. Both operations have ready access to some of the best fruit in the RRV and Green Valley appellations.
There is a definite "house-style" to Dutton-Goldfield's appellation-bottlings: they are uniformly sleek, zesty, firm, focused and graceful. The vineyard-designated wines on the other hand each seem tailored to bring forth all the individual personality of the property: be that character elegant or powerful, fruity or savory, or all of the above. All of Dutton-Goldfield's Pinots are notable for their age-worthiness.
Winemaker Dan Goldfield is an incredibly informative, notoriously talkative, "winemaking encyclopedia". I am less informative, but possibly more verbose, so it probably favored our time constraints when he had to be elsewhere. Our tasting guides were my favorite phone-tag pal, Valerie Wathen and Dan's assistant winemaker Brandon Lapides. They easily fielded our questions and showed us everything we asked to see.
If DG's 2006 Rued Chardonnay is a lush, tropically-accented, richly oaky mouthful, their 2007 Dutton Ranch appellation Chardonnay is a racy, Pouilly-Fuisse-esque bottling. Which uses drying mineral undercurrents and zesty fruit acidity as a base for its forthcoming white peach, green apple and preserved lemon fruit. It is a wine that cries out for oysters, as does the 2007 Pinot Blanc, a wine with delightful elegance and pretty apple, lemon and melon fruit.
I had loved the 2006 Dutton-Goldfield RRV Dutton Ranch Pinot Noir, a racy, focused, cherry and rose petal-scented beauty, so I was more than curious to try the 2007 version. The wine was to be bottled the next day, so we were able to taste the final tank blend. It proved to be outright superior to the '06, with gorgeous aromas of Black cherry, boysenberry, orange peel, smoke and floral hints, and lingering, mineral-laced flavors of cherry, rose and orange. After this taste, we were even more excited to move into the barrel room to try the Vineyard-Designated wines.
The 2007 McDougal PN was powerfully ripe, with a dramatically expressive nose of Bing and Black cherry, leather, rootbeer-bark, bouillon and other savory notes. It was huge on the palate, massively structured and intensely flavorful, and packed with Bing cherry, boysenberry, raspberry and loads of hunters broth and rootbeer-bark spice. The luxurious finish holds 5-8 years of tannin at bay.
The Sanchetti PN, is typically a wine of restraint and super elegance in its youth and the 2007 had a brilliantly focused, if tightly-would nose of red cherry, orange peel and roasted grain. The flavors were, in contrast, super-forthcoming, and were packed with cherry, red plum, orange, dry rose, pink peppercorn, bouillon and grain. This one is both classy and expressive, with good tannins and a burst of red plum at the finish. It will get better for years.
The 2007 Freestone Hill PN, is characterized by lovely aromas of red raspberry, red plum, yellow rose, orange and grain; all tightly wrapped, but brilliantly focused. It is just as intense on the palate, with chiseled red raspberry, red plum, orange, yellow rose, mineral and grain flavors, and firm tannins below an ultra-long finish.
The 2007 Devils Gulch PN was the only truly reserved wine of the group, with boysenberry the main fruit element, along with strong mineral scents, which reminded me of broken sea shells. It has a strongly masculine personality and flavors of boysenberry, sumac, white pepper, coriander seed and lots of tannin. It is clearly meant for the cellar and I found it hard to fully evaluate at this stage.
We tried several other delicious DG wines, in barrel and bottle, but I will save those reviews for another day. I will however, be keeping my eye out for the release of the brilliant 2006 Morelli Zin, and much later its 2007 counterpart, as well as the fabulous 2007 Cherry Syrah.