Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Two Pinot for Lunch

At lunch at Wood Tavern in Oakland we were able to sample two Pinot Noirs that provided an interesting contrast in styles. The 2006 Windy Oaks Proprietor's Reserve showed an ethereal, high-toned aromatic profile, with distinct notes of dill that provided a suggestion of incipient complexity in this still quite young wine. Seamless and light footed in the mouth, this struck me as actually closer in style to the high altitude Rhys from 2007 that I have tried than it did the 2004 Rhys Alpine Vineyard tasted along side of it. The 2004 Rhys Alpine showed darker fruit and a much spicier flavor profile, apparently linked to the use of whole stems, with a slightly rustic side that suggested a Nuits-St-George to Lou Rittenhouse. (An interesting contrast was the dark fruited 2007 Rhys Home Vineyard tasted earlier, which shows greater depth, even darker fruit, and significantly greater length than the 2004--here the comparison in my mind was a spicy version of a Vosne-Romanee Malconsorts, just to the north of the NSG border). The 2004 Rhys Alpine doesn't show the weightlessness of the 2007 (or even 2006) high altitude Rhys wines, nor their finesse and length, but still it is an enjoyable wine that could still benefit from a few years in the bottle. In the case of the 2006 Windy Oaks Proprietor's Reserve, the lack of structure and minerality has me wondering how much this will improve with time in the bottle, but perhaps it is just meant to evolve along different lines...

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