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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The Day After Pinot Days - Part Two
Last April, Zoe, Frank, Brandon and I Barrel tasted the brilliant '05 Dutton-Goldfield Pinots, so we had high expectations as we sought out their table at Pinot Days.
Since its debut in 1995 I have loved both the Sanchetti vineyard and Dan Goldfield's winemaking (Dan was winemaker at Hartford Court when they first vineyard-designated the property). The '05 Sanchetti now in bottle, proved to be a brilliantly structured, lavishly fruity and wonderfully complex wine, which will (as always) need more age than their already fabulously aromatic and itself age-worthy, '05 Freestone Hill bottling. The D-G 2005 McDougal shows great promise, but wine from this vineyard needs serious age to fully reveal itself.
Dutton Estate offered the richly flavored (and currently available) 2005 Thomas Road as well as an ultra-elegant '05 Jewell Block. DEs winemaker, Matt Gustafson, also brought one of his own Paul Matthew wines, the delicious and age-worthy 2005 Ruxton.
Russian Hill poured outstanding 2005s, including their tightly structured Leras bottling (usually released a year behind its siblings), their flagship Tara vineyard (built to last, like the D-G Sanchetti) and the already wonderfully floral and expressive Meredith. The first two demand cellaring to fully deliver their best, but the third is so delicious that it may prove hard to keep around that long.
I re-tasted many fine but previously released bottlings, from people like Tantara, Londer and Alfaro and found many other exciting individual efforts. I was very impressed by the 2004 Talisman Thorn Ridge (as were Zoe and Mendel); the 2004 Donum Carneros; Freeman's 2005 Sonoma Coast, RRV and Akiko's; the 2005 Hirsch Sonoma Coast; the 2004 Inman Olivet Grange; Laetitia's 2005 Les Galets; Alfaro's 2005 Lindsay Paige and Bill Canihan's 2005 Exuberance. My big disappointment of the day was that Jennifer Halleck didn't bring barrel samples of any of her four great 2006 Pinots.
I was personally unable to try all of the new entrants (although I tasted without a pause from 11:00am to 4:00pm), but was impressed by the 2005 Thorne Rio Vista from the Santa Rita Hills; the 2006 Benovia Cohn and especially their '06 Proprietary Blend (James like them equally); and the Anthill Farms' 2005 Tina Marie (Mendel preferred Anthill's '05 Demuth, James the Tina Marie).
James was impressed by two wines I had missed; the 2004 Clary Sonoma Coast and the 2005 Baker Lane Hurst vineyard; while Morgan's 2005 Tondre's Grapefield (a wine I was hoping to taste) was gone before we got to that table. Each of us spent time retasting some wines that were already on NVWE shelves.
Looking back, I realize that there were several more wines I wish I had tried, but my resolve faded after five hours. That resolve returned a few days later however, when Zoe and Mendel came to dinner to share a pork roast with a bottle of Marcassin's Three Sisters and another of Patricia Green's Notorious.