Had this complex wine varietal actually slipped from my consciousness? Kinda sorta. I haven’t been drinking much of it lately. I was telling a friend that seven or eight years ago, if you asked me my favorite varietal, it would have been Pinot Noir. Before that, going 15 years back, it was Zinfandel. Now I seem to be firmly in Rose’s camp in the summer and bold red blends, or the fancier term for a blend, cuvee, more often than not. Now that the weather has turned cold, I’m making “big” meat-based food with sauces for dinner half the week, and I need wines that hold their own with the food. Tonight, for example, I’m doing a bolognase with freshly steamed fennel, sauted green pepper and garlic with an infused olive oil and leftover meatloaf (lamb, turkey, ground chuck, Italian-seasoned ground pork) in a tomato sauch with Marsala wine, which will be poured over mushroom raviolis swimming in a black truffle tomato sauce and topped with Mozzarella. For good measure, I’ll top the bolognase with freshly grated, 10-year-old hard parmesan after smothering the raviolis with the meat and vegetables. I haven’t gone through the cellar yet to pick the wine for tonight, but odds are on a red blend.
Anyway, back to Pinot Noir. I had lunch this past week with a fellow North Coast Hobo (that’s another story, another day) and we were talking about wine but not drinking it. Plain water with Chinese food was not fodder for a wine conversation, per se, but he was telling me that he had taken a viticulture class at the local JC to learn about growing grapes, because he and his wife had recently bought a property that included four acres of vineyard – along with their new home, and he took the class so he could communicate intelligently with the farmer managing his vineyard.
My new friend’s vineyard has Chardonnay grapes but the conversation shifted to Pinot Noir, and my new friend expressed his displeasure at most of the Pinot’s on the market today. Mind you, dear reader, we live in Sonoma County, with many micro-climates, some of which are either good for Pinot, great for Pinot or exceptional for the delicate wine. My friend started to say how they taste to his palate and paused in mid-sentence to find the word, when he said it. “They just taste so…….raw, to me” he said, adding: “I don’t know how to describe wine like the wine writers and Sommeliers do.” Neither do I.
Coincidentally two days later I got an email from one of the local Pinot Noir makers, Black Kite, offering some holiday specials, with the only thing being special was the free shipping. In the past when I have purchased this excellent wine I would just go pick it up, as it is right up the road from me. But what the heck the shipping was included and I bought a six-pack that included Anderson Valley Pinots from 2016 and 2018, for $300.
With the knowledge that my Black Kite would be replenished this week, I grabbed a 2018 Gap’s Crown Vineyard bottle that was from an estate vineyard in the Sonoma Coast Appellation. This is an AVA (American Viticultural Area) that encompasses more than 500,000 acres – mostly along the Pacific Coastline, and extends from San Pablo Bay (an off-shoot of the San Francisco Bay) to the border north of Sonoma County at Mendocino County. The appellation is known for its cool climate and high rainfall relative to other parts of Sonoma County, and given the size of the county, it has no fewer than eight sub-regions in the AVA. For wine nerds, I will spell them out:
- Chalk Hill AVA
- Fort Ross-Seaview AVA
- Green Valley of Russian River Valley AVA
- Los Carneros AVA
- Northern Sonoma AVA
- Petaluma Gap AVA
- Russian River AVA
- Sonoma River AVA
Farmers must appreciate this post!
The Black Kite Pinot paired perfectly with last night’s dinner, and the wine was absolutely declious. Dinner was simple and classic comfort food after a day of hard and very cold rain: baked potatoes with butter, finely diced red onion, sour cream and dried parsley; chicken wings (all flats) that I had brined five hours and then seasoned with garlic powder, sage, paprika, black pepper and rosemary, and Sicilian (oven) roasted broccoli (tossed first with olive oil, truffle salt, red pepper flakes) and when the broccoli was fully roasted, I clustered the vegetables in the middle of the baking dish and drizzled fresh-squeezed lemon juice and then topped the veggies with grated parmesan-pecorino.
The food and wine was so good it led to music played loudly (Christie McVee singing You Make Loving Fun – Fleetwood Mac) and a little dancing. Then we cleaned up the kitchen and retreated to watch the 2004 movie and much revered, Sideways, which is a lot of things but in the category of wine, it elevated Pinot Noir to stardom while in the name of unitended consequences, led to the tanking of wine sales for more humble varietals, namely Merlot.
At about 56 or 57 minutes into the movie, there was the ah-ha moment about Pinot Noir, and the essence of this wine varietal was more than aptly described by Paul Giammati’s character in the movie.
Maya, played by Virginia Madsen, asks:
“Can I ask you a personal question, Miles? Why are you so into Pinot?”
Miles answered:
“It’s a hard grape to grow. It’s thin skinned and temperamental. It ripens early.
It’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and ah, thrive even when it’s neglected.
No. Pinot needs constant care and attention.
In fact in can only grow in these really specific, little tucked away corners of the world.
Only the most patient, and nurturing of growers can do it, really.
Only if somebody really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential, they can then coax it into its fullest expression.
And then its flavors are the most haunting, and brilliant, and thrilling, and subtle and……they are the most ancient on the planet.
I mean Cabernets can be powerful and exhalting too but they seem prosaic by comparison.”
Wow!
Hats off to writers!
For the record the writers were Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne, the latter of which also directed the movie. In case you don’t recall what prosaic means, it was not a flattering word choice by Miles, because it means “lacking poetic beauty.”
Get over it, Cab lovers.
Going forward, I might be a little picky about which Pinot Noir I buy and drink, but after last night, it is firmly back in the rotation.
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