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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Pinot Fest! [Part One]
Farallon is a fine and popular San Francisco restaurant, located in Union Square, just a few blocks from Napa Valley Winery Exchange. Each November, Farallon hosts "Pinot Fest", an invitation-only showcase of California and Oregon Pinot Noirs. It is held in Farallon's 4th floor Beluga Room.
Sommelier Pete Palmer is in charge of the event and, as he has both good taste and many friends in the trade, it is always a terrific tasting. It is also a great opportunity for NVWE staffers to revisit some of their favorite bottlings and get an early glimpse of what is on the horizon.
Old Home Week
I spent 1972 to 1979 running a wine and grocery store in Santa Barbara and some of the well-known winery personalities from that area remember me, having been customers of mine in their youth. NVWE staff are well known to the local vintners, so this event is a chance for all of us to bump into friends, and it was no particular surprise when my elbow was grabbed and my name called twice as I stepped out of the elevator to the 4th floor.
Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton were there (although I never saw Greg, in the elbow-to-elbow crowd). Steve had shown us a preview of Brewer-Clifton Spring releases the day before (a group of six brilliant 2006 Chardonnays and Pinots), so I only stopped at the BC table to chuckle at his sartorial splendor. He had abandoned his "working bloke" attire of the previous day, to look like a Parliamentarian, at Farallon.
Winemaker Vanessa Wong and her brother-in-law, Andy Peay, were pouring the outstanding Peay '05 Pinots, along with barrel samples of their, possibly even finer, 2006s. My longest and most interesting conversation was with Chad Melville, who was unveiling the 2006 Melville "Carries" and "Terraces" Pinots, both knockouts.
Solving Puzzles
At NVWE, we had been puzzled by a recently poured sample of 2006 Melville Santa Rita Hills Estate Pinot. It seemed lean, un-evolved and ungenerous to a fault, leading me to suspect an outright failure of the crop. Its pricier siblings however, proved to be dramatically spiced, ripe, concentrated and altogether spectacular.
Chad said that the Estate version had been in the pattern of the "Carries" and "Terraces" prior to bottling and that this was an especially rich vintage for the "SRH Estate". The wine has apparently just been unusually slow to recover from bottling. This level of bottle-shock is rare, but I know Chad and have now seen the quality of the Reserve wines, so we will certainly do a re-taste of the "Estate Pinot" soon.