Typical Santa Lucia Highlands flavors from both Tondre and Hook vineyards, including dark berry, cherry cola, cinnamon, cedar, spice and toasty oak. Made from delicious barrels left after selecting the top eight for the 2014 Single Vineyard Tudor SLH Pinot Noir release.
“Dried cherry and woodsmoke aromas are complemented by hints of cola and licorice. Chewy and focused on the palate, offering bitter cherry and cocoa powder flavors. Closes broad and smoky, with a repeating cherry note and dusty tannins that build slowly.” Vinous
Specifications
Vintage: 2014
Varietal: 100% Pinot Noir
Appellation: Santa Lucia Highlands
Alcohol: 13%
TA: 5.8
pH: 3.5
Production: 200 Cases
Price Comparison
Not for sale online, $432/case MSRP
Included In the Box
4-bottles:
4x 2014 Nacina Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands
Or
Case:
12x 2014 Nacina Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands
About The Winery
Winery: Tudor Wines
Owners: Dan and Christian Tudor
Founded: 2000
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Every year our grandfather Tudor used to make wine for his friends and family. It’s a tradition. The Tudor family has been growing grapes and lavender and making wine on the Island of Hvar in Croatia for over 2,000 years. The Tudors began growing grapes in California early in the 1900′s and continue to operate one of the largest table grape vineyards in the country.
In an increasingly mechanized world, there are still a few handcrafted products that stand out. Fine wine is one of them. At Tudor Wines, we select fruit from family-owned vineyards and transform it into wine using traditional techniques. These include small fermentations mixed by hand and aging in French barrels. The resulting wine has a purity of expression that cannot be duplicated on a larger scale.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Nacina Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir by Dan Tudor
4 bottles for $59.99 $15/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $134.99 $11.25/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2014 Nacina Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir by Dan Tudor - $45 = 24.99%
Happy birthday to me, I get to be a lab rat, whoot! My birthday is on Sunday, so when I saw the email this week, I figured either someone in Casemates likes me, or the universe felt bad for my rare weekend birthday being during lockdown. Either way, I wasn’t going to quibble!
Even better, we already had a beef dish (kebabs) planned for dinner on Friday, so a pinot noir was a perfect fit. I have to admit, I’m more of a white wine/rose drinker, so I don’t know as much on the red technobabble.
Now, the good stuff:
It sat at room temp (which was around 75-80 most of the day, as our building has a centralized heating/cooling system that hasn’t been turned to cooling yet, much to my annoyance) since it got here a bit earlier in the week. I twisted the cap off around 5, knowing I tend to prefer reds wines once they’ve had a chance to breathe in the decanter for a bit. Good call in this case, I tasted a bit just after opening and it could nearly strip paint! Harsh, with a strong alcohol forward smell. Glad I only splashed a bit into my glass, I grabbed something else until dinner. About 7:30, we got into it.
To my (pleasant) surprise, it had mellowed a LOT. Cherry, raspberry, definitely fruity, but not at all sweet. The alcohol had mellowed almost entirely out, leaving a really well balanced, not too soft wine behind. There’s enough tannins to make it hold up to food, though I don’t think I’d pair it with anything too sharp. The kebabs were paired with artichoke hearts, dolmas, and lemon pilaf, and I found it far better to sip after the food was finished.
There’s a little bit of a woodsy taste (My roommate thought it reminded him of teak, IDK why he’d know what teak tastes like, I don’t go around licking wood).
If I were someone with the patience to age wine at home, I’d probably sock some of this away for fall, or even longer. As is, I’m half tempted to get some and see if I can hide it from my roommate long enough to pull it off! Given how much it opened up with the decanter, I think it might age REALLY well.
@Jamileigh17 If you have any left, try putting it in the fridge for a while- 75-80 is way warm for any wine, much less a Pinot, it will taste pretty harsh. Much better closer to 55-60 if you can give that a try and report back. Thanks for the rat!
@Jamileigh17 Yeah, not sure I can get behind that one. I think it’s a personal preference. In fact, I sometimes put my red wine in the microwave, just to give it a warm pop. It really gets the molecules spinning and wakes up the wine.
@Turbo5000 LOL! It’s not deliberate, I just don’t get control over my room temperatures to any major degree. I just never thought about chilling red wines, I’d always just seen them served from room temp. Maybe that’s why I like white/rose wines better.
@Jamileigh17 Yeah, but “room” temp is supposed to be European, not USA, so more like low 60’s. Put your red wine in the fridge for 30 min before you serve it. So much better in the 60’s!!
@wnance Now that I know that, I’ll try that going forward. My parents always just drank theirs at the normal house temperature of 75 too, so it literally never crossed my mind to fridge a red other than MAYBE lambrusco, and that’s just because it’s fizzy and fizzys stay bubbly longer when cooler.
Try to be sure and drink pinot at 64 degrees, or at least somewhere in the 60’s. I hope you enjoy this wine as it is like our other declassified pinot better than a lot of winery’s flagship wine. We simply don’t compromise - ever. Stay well! Cheers, Dan Tudor
@Tudor_Winemaker thanks for jumping on board! Can you expand on what you mean by declassification? Based on notes this bottling is made from same grapes as single vineyard bottling. Just not the top 8 barrels. Am I way off here?
@losthighwayz thanks for the question. Our 2014 vintage was around 80 barrels of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir. I used fruit from two vineyards, and then selected just the very best barrels for the Tudor label as usual and the remaining barrels were “declassified” making this Nacina SLH pinot noir.
The 2014 Nacina Pinot Noir showed up on a cool morning after an overnight trip from CA to VA. I wish I could say we had some amazing jealousy inducing meal to pair it with, something involving figs or quail or brisket smoked for 18 hours. But this is quarantine life with 3 kids underfoot. WINE, you get tacos. And not even beef, it’s heart healthy ground turkey simmered with taco seasonings and a little sauted spinach. (which, i’ll be honest, still works)
After letting the Pinot warm to room temp, we cracked the Stelven. It poured a semi-opaque reddish brown. I wrote down garnet, but to some that evokes a bright red color. So let’s go with ‘currant’ or perhaps ‘sangria’. Leggy with large drizzles of alcohol as you swirl, it’s thinner than the color suggests.
On the nose… faintly cherry, with some earthy-ness. Wife thought tobacco but I didn’t agree. Really not a lot of aromatics. I had to really get my schnoz in the glass to get a whiff.
First taste: cherry… berry…. maybe raspberry? I would not describe it as a “FRUITY” wine… but those are the flavors sneaking around. No pepper or spice. Dry and tart but not overwhelmingly so. There’s a tingle on the roof of the mouth that I first thought was alcohol, but 13.5% on the label clued me in to high acidity. There is a big mouth feel but it fades in 5-10 seconds, with no tannins lingering in the throat.
We unwrapped a brick of Tuscan herb rubbed Fontal cheese, our sole concession to being fancy. The creamy cheese paired nicely, buffering the Nacina’s acid and letting the flavors shine. At dinner, the wine was easy drinking with crunchy and soft tacos and bites of refried beans. Usually, I eat tex mex with stupid amounts of hot sauce but tonight I stuck with a mild tomato salsa and cool sour cream. I think strongly spiced or spicy foods would overwhelm this wine.
Verdict: food friendly, maybe food mandatory? Great flavor, but acidic. The acidity was not distracting or bad, but it stands out in my head.
Verdict Day 2: I had a few sips after breakfast. This is the same wine from last night, but I like it more. I think I was being extra judgy yesterday… but I also think a litte breathing helped. I would no longer describe it as food mandatory, just food friendly. However: I would not drink this with anything boldly spiced. I tasted a dab of memphis BBQ sauce, and the next sip of wine turned to water in my mouth. In the evening as we split the last glass, we wished we had another bottle.
My guess is that this goes at the winery around $35, but is in its waning years and priced to move around $12/bottle/case. I will be very tempted to pick it up at that price.
The wine retails for $36 on our website but we don’t offer it at the tasting room. Most of the Nacina SLH pinot noir gets sold to “A list” restaurants where it is usually priced by the glass at $12 to $14 per 5 oz pour. The wine drinkers win and hopefully visit out tasting room to discover the very best Tudor pinot noirs. With a couple pallets of this wine remaining earmarked for restaurants which are all shut down now we decided to make it available to casemates. It is drinking really beautifully. Like all our SLH pinots it ages as well or better than grand cru burgundies costing 10x as much.
@eburke@Twich22@Tudor_Winemaker
If these were to continue to be stored correctly, for how many years would you guess they would age well?
(BTW, most of us don’t all think think long-cellaring wine is " better". Rather, we tend to be people who “stock up”, and just want to know age-ability from the point of view of how to arrange our wine enjoyment. “Ready to drink now” is also a fantastic feature.)
@PatrickKarcher@Tudor_Winemaker@Twich22@Winedavid49 fwiw I did not mean to impugn the wine when I said waning. I meant it has reached its window and won’t improve much from further aging.
I think it would absolutely be good for at least 3-4 years (if we don’t drink if all before then).
@eburke@Tudor_Winemaker@Twich22 I’m also no expert at ALL on reds. A white, I’d have a better handle on suggestions. Main reason I thought it might age well is the harder alcohol smell on opening, but given the above discussion on temperature, I’m thinking that was more the effect of it being too warm than needing some more mellowing time.
Thanks for the messages. We always release our wines when they are ready to start drinking which depending on the wine is usually between 1 and 3 years in the bottle. We taste the wines every 4 to 6 months to make that call
( tough job )
When they are at some theoretical peak is really subjective because if you like your wine with more fruit drink younger, with less fruit and more complexity drink later. It’s been a real shocker to open our 15 to 21 yr old pinots lately and find they are absolutely beautiful, balanced, perfumed, and even with varying degrees of fruit.
I suppose I would recommend drinking this 2014 Nacina SLH pinot noir over the next couple years.
Casemates has been hitting my wallet hard. This sounds like a typical Santa Lucia Pinot, which I tend to find fruity (clean) versus the mushroom/earth/forest floor which I covet in Pinots.
That said, I really appreciate the winemaker feedback and certainly seems like a good wine for the price.
@ttboy23 I live next to a wine-broker who is far more knowledgeable than me. I lab-ratted a pinot that was twice the price from Santa Lucia and he confirmed that is the style…
So, it is not for me. If you go in, I would trade a few bottles, but I won’t be ordering. I guess in my (younger) middle-age, I am becoming more of a fan of things that are not fruit or barrel age.
@KNmeh7@ttboy23 Given the ageing statements above, it’d be super interesting to get a library offer of these to see what happens when they age. Some Pinots will be really fruity and “clean” when younger but pick up that nice sous bois character as they age.
I’m with you - I prefer the earthy complexity and mushroom qualities in a Pinot. So I will leave this one to others as well.
@KNmeh7 This matches my sentiments. Though this does sound like an excellent deal at this price, depending on where you fall on the “may age well” vs “waning years” debate (in vino veritas, I suppose, so only the bottles will tell us the truth in the end.) And sometimes a pinot in this style might match my mood.
But my favorites are by far the Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs by some of the great Oregon producers. I learned in some tastings that even in that same region, there are variations, partly due to the different soils (hillside vs richer valley floor deposits) and of course winemaker’s choices in harvesting and blending.
One expression I heard that I latched-onto was “you can taste the dirt that it grows in” – now that’s not literally true, but it describes a really deep earthiness that’s often not at all like the expected forward fruit in Pinot Noir. Also it’s been my experience that you seldom find those styles of Pinot for under about $30, even on sites like this. I recall one from many years back from WW days, but don’t recall which Oregon producer it was.
@KNmeh7@pmarin Willamette Valley was not all that well represented on ww, probably for the pricing issue you describe. I believe there were offerings from Willakenzie, Winter’s Hill, and maybe Lange or Penner Ash. There may have been others.
I was just telling @DrHellKnow that I needed a low-cost Pinot to protect my last three bottles (2 of winesmith 2007 RRV and one of Iron Horse 2012 estate RRV)
This one exceeds my expectations. Acidity? Check. $11? Sold (maybe I should expect more.)
The fact that it comes from SLH, only 200 cases and the producer is highly regarded by people that I don’t know is just icing on the cake.
This was a no brainer for me. I don’t have any Pinot left in my wine cellar, or I should say pantry closet. Actually, I’ve taken over the coat closet too already.
It’s hard to love wine in a small house.
No clue yet where to put this when it gets here. Gonna have to drink faster
I do appreciate hearing from the winery and also what ideal drink temp is. Probably a hour or half should do in fridge. My house runs at about 76.
Used to have a small wine fridge, but they died too fast.
Before lockdown, it was much easier to sneak wine cases into house. Now husband works from home and I can’t quickly find a spot for the heavy box.
Not sure where he thinks all those bottles come from we love to drink
For 15 years now I have been making Pinot Noir from the Tondre vineyard for my mentor Richard G. Peterson. I have always enjoyed all of the Tudor wines I have tasted. So, I’m in. Look forward to tasting the Tudor, knowing what Santa Lucia Highlands can produce.
@KNmeh7@rjquillin In 2012 Dr. Peterson had more wine than he wanted to bottle. So with a little blending (so the wine wasn’t the same as Dr. Peterson,s) I bottled the extra under the Jana label. About 50 cases.
I just opened a bottle of this from a case… looks a little cloudy and doesn’t taste like Pinot. Chunks of sediment in first pour. Anyone else try it yet? I’ll sample another bottle to see if it’s a trend…
Tasting Notes
Specifications
Price Comparison
Not for sale online, $432/case MSRP
Included In the Box
Or
About The Winery
Winery: Tudor Wines
Owners: Dan and Christian Tudor
Founded: 2000
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Friday, June 12th - Tuesday, June 16th
Nacina Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir by Dan Tudor
4 bottles for $59.99 $15/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $134.99 $11.25/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2014 Nacina Pinot Noir
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
2014 Nacina Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir by Dan Tudor - $45 = 24.99%
Happy birthday to me, I get to be a lab rat, whoot! My birthday is on Sunday, so when I saw the email this week, I figured either someone in Casemates likes me, or the universe felt bad for my rare weekend birthday being during lockdown. Either way, I wasn’t going to quibble!
Even better, we already had a beef dish (kebabs) planned for dinner on Friday, so a pinot noir was a perfect fit. I have to admit, I’m more of a white wine/rose drinker, so I don’t know as much on the red technobabble.
Now, the good stuff:
It sat at room temp (which was around 75-80 most of the day, as our building has a centralized heating/cooling system that hasn’t been turned to cooling yet, much to my annoyance) since it got here a bit earlier in the week. I twisted the cap off around 5, knowing I tend to prefer reds wines once they’ve had a chance to breathe in the decanter for a bit. Good call in this case, I tasted a bit just after opening and it could nearly strip paint! Harsh, with a strong alcohol forward smell. Glad I only splashed a bit into my glass, I grabbed something else until dinner. About 7:30, we got into it.
To my (pleasant) surprise, it had mellowed a LOT. Cherry, raspberry, definitely fruity, but not at all sweet. The alcohol had mellowed almost entirely out, leaving a really well balanced, not too soft wine behind. There’s enough tannins to make it hold up to food, though I don’t think I’d pair it with anything too sharp. The kebabs were paired with artichoke hearts, dolmas, and lemon pilaf, and I found it far better to sip after the food was finished.
There’s a little bit of a woodsy taste (My roommate thought it reminded him of teak, IDK why he’d know what teak tastes like, I don’t go around licking wood).
If I were someone with the patience to age wine at home, I’d probably sock some of this away for fall, or even longer. As is, I’m half tempted to get some and see if I can hide it from my roommate long enough to pull it off! Given how much it opened up with the decanter, I think it might age REALLY well.
@Jamileigh17 If you have any left, try putting it in the fridge for a while- 75-80 is way warm for any wine, much less a Pinot, it will taste pretty harsh. Much better closer to 55-60 if you can give that a try and report back. Thanks for the rat!
@wnance It’s about typical for my household in the late spring and early fall, so I’m probably just used to it. But good to know for the future!
@Jamileigh17 Yeah, not sure I can get behind that one. I think it’s a personal preference. In fact, I sometimes put my red wine in the microwave, just to give it a warm pop. It really gets the molecules spinning and wakes up the wine.
@Turbo5000 LOL! It’s not deliberate, I just don’t get control over my room temperatures to any major degree. I just never thought about chilling red wines, I’d always just seen them served from room temp. Maybe that’s why I like white/rose wines better.
@Jamileigh17 Yeah, but “room” temp is supposed to be European, not USA, so more like low 60’s. Put your red wine in the fridge for 30 min before you serve it. So much better in the 60’s!!
@wnance Now that I know that, I’ll try that going forward. My parents always just drank theirs at the normal house temperature of 75 too, so it literally never crossed my mind to fridge a red other than MAYBE lambrusco, and that’s just because it’s fizzy and fizzys stay bubbly longer when cooler.
Try to be sure and drink pinot at 64 degrees, or at least somewhere in the 60’s. I hope you enjoy this wine as it is like our other declassified pinot better than a lot of winery’s flagship wine. We simply don’t compromise - ever. Stay well! Cheers, Dan Tudor
@Tudor_Winemaker thanks for jumping on board! Can you expand on what you mean by declassification? Based on notes this bottling is made from same grapes as single vineyard bottling. Just not the top 8 barrels. Am I way off here?
@losthighwayz @Tudor_Winemaker
Wine declassified
@losthighwayz thanks for the question. Our 2014 vintage was around 80 barrels of Santa Lucia Highlands pinot noir. I used fruit from two vineyards, and then selected just the very best barrels for the Tudor label as usual and the remaining barrels were “declassified” making this Nacina SLH pinot noir.
The picture shows a screwtop - is that the case?
@pete0744
/giphy pics don’t lie
@pete0744
Just the bottle, the case is normal.
The 2014 Nacina Pinot Noir showed up on a cool morning after an overnight trip from CA to VA. I wish I could say we had some amazing jealousy inducing meal to pair it with, something involving figs or quail or brisket smoked for 18 hours. But this is quarantine life with 3 kids underfoot. WINE, you get tacos. And not even beef, it’s heart healthy ground turkey simmered with taco seasonings and a little sauted spinach. (which, i’ll be honest, still works)
After letting the Pinot warm to room temp, we cracked the Stelven. It poured a semi-opaque reddish brown. I wrote down garnet, but to some that evokes a bright red color. So let’s go with ‘currant’ or perhaps ‘sangria’. Leggy with large drizzles of alcohol as you swirl, it’s thinner than the color suggests.
On the nose… faintly cherry, with some earthy-ness. Wife thought tobacco but I didn’t agree. Really not a lot of aromatics. I had to really get my schnoz in the glass to get a whiff.
First taste: cherry… berry…. maybe raspberry? I would not describe it as a “FRUITY” wine… but those are the flavors sneaking around. No pepper or spice. Dry and tart but not overwhelmingly so. There’s a tingle on the roof of the mouth that I first thought was alcohol, but 13.5% on the label clued me in to high acidity. There is a big mouth feel but it fades in 5-10 seconds, with no tannins lingering in the throat.
We unwrapped a brick of Tuscan herb rubbed Fontal cheese, our sole concession to being fancy. The creamy cheese paired nicely, buffering the Nacina’s acid and letting the flavors shine. At dinner, the wine was easy drinking with crunchy and soft tacos and bites of refried beans. Usually, I eat tex mex with stupid amounts of hot sauce but tonight I stuck with a mild tomato salsa and cool sour cream. I think strongly spiced or spicy foods would overwhelm this wine.
Verdict: food friendly, maybe food mandatory? Great flavor, but acidic. The acidity was not distracting or bad, but it stands out in my head.
Verdict Day 2: I had a few sips after breakfast. This is the same wine from last night, but I like it more. I think I was being extra judgy yesterday… but I also think a litte breathing helped. I would no longer describe it as food mandatory, just food friendly. However: I would not drink this with anything boldly spiced. I tasted a dab of memphis BBQ sauce, and the next sip of wine turned to water in my mouth. In the evening as we split the last glass, we wished we had another bottle.
My guess is that this goes at the winery around $35, but is in its waning years and priced to move around $12/bottle/case. I will be very tempted to pick it up at that price.
@eburke thanks for the post.
The wine retails for $36 on our website but we don’t offer it at the tasting room. Most of the Nacina SLH pinot noir gets sold to “A list” restaurants where it is usually priced by the glass at $12 to $14 per 5 oz pour. The wine drinkers win and hopefully visit out tasting room to discover the very best Tudor pinot noirs. With a couple pallets of this wine remaining earmarked for restaurants which are all shut down now we decided to make it available to casemates. It is drinking really beautifully. Like all our SLH pinots it ages as well or better than grand cru burgundies costing 10x as much.
@eburke @Tudor_Winemaker
Thanks for the input. I had just posted “One Rat says it may age well, the other rat says its in its waning years. Anyone care to add anything?”
@eburke @Twich22 @Tudor_Winemaker
If these were to continue to be stored correctly, for how many years would you guess they would age well?
(BTW, most of us don’t all think think long-cellaring wine is " better". Rather, we tend to be people who “stock up”, and just want to know age-ability from the point of view of how to arrange our wine enjoyment. “Ready to drink now” is also a fantastic feature.)
@eburke @PatrickKarcher @Tudor_Winemaker @Twich22
I’ll chime in and say I think this is a drink now and for the next year or two.
@PatrickKarcher @Tudor_Winemaker @Twich22 @Winedavid49 fwiw I did not mean to impugn the wine when I said waning. I meant it has reached its window and won’t improve much from further aging.
I think it would absolutely be good for at least 3-4 years (if we don’t drink if all before then).
@eburke @Tudor_Winemaker @Twich22 I’m also no expert at ALL on reds. A white, I’d have a better handle on suggestions. Main reason I thought it might age well is the harder alcohol smell on opening, but given the above discussion on temperature, I’m thinking that was more the effect of it being too warm than needing some more mellowing time.
Thanks for the messages. We always release our wines when they are ready to start drinking which depending on the wine is usually between 1 and 3 years in the bottle. We taste the wines every 4 to 6 months to make that call
( tough job
When they are at some theoretical peak is really subjective because if you like your wine with more fruit drink younger, with less fruit and more complexity drink later. It’s been a real shocker to open our 15 to 21 yr old pinots lately and find they are absolutely beautiful, balanced, perfumed, and even with varying degrees of fruit.
I suppose I would recommend drinking this 2014 Nacina SLH pinot noir over the next couple years.
Casemates has been hitting my wallet hard. This sounds like a typical Santa Lucia Pinot, which I tend to find fruity (clean) versus the mushroom/earth/forest floor which I covet in Pinots.
That said, I really appreciate the winemaker feedback and certainly seems like a good wine for the price.
@KNmeh7 Does this mean you’re buying/bought?
The case price is a nice discount.
@ttboy23 I live next to a wine-broker who is far more knowledgeable than me. I lab-ratted a pinot that was twice the price from Santa Lucia and he confirmed that is the style…
So, it is not for me. If you go in, I would trade a few bottles, but I won’t be ordering. I guess in my (younger) middle-age, I am becoming more of a fan of things that are not fruit or barrel age.
@KNmeh7 @ttboy23 Given the ageing statements above, it’d be super interesting to get a library offer of these to see what happens when they age. Some Pinots will be really fruity and “clean” when younger but pick up that nice sous bois character as they age.
I’m with you - I prefer the earthy complexity and mushroom qualities in a Pinot. So I will leave this one to others as well.
@KNmeh7 This matches my sentiments. Though this does sound like an excellent deal at this price, depending on where you fall on the “may age well” vs “waning years” debate (in vino veritas, I suppose, so only the bottles will tell us the truth in the end.) And sometimes a pinot in this style might match my mood.
But my favorites are by far the Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs by some of the great Oregon producers. I learned in some tastings that even in that same region, there are variations, partly due to the different soils (hillside vs richer valley floor deposits) and of course winemaker’s choices in harvesting and blending.
One expression I heard that I latched-onto was “you can taste the dirt that it grows in” – now that’s not literally true, but it describes a really deep earthiness that’s often not at all like the expected forward fruit in Pinot Noir. Also it’s been my experience that you seldom find those styles of Pinot for under about $30, even on sites like this. I recall one from many years back from WW days, but don’t recall which Oregon producer it was.
@KNmeh7 @pmarin Willamette Valley was not all that well represented on ww, probably for the pricing issue you describe. I believe there were offerings from Willakenzie, Winter’s Hill, and maybe Lange or Penner Ash. There may have been others.
I was just telling @DrHellKnow that I needed a low-cost Pinot to protect my last three bottles (2 of winesmith 2007 RRV and one of Iron Horse 2012 estate RRV)
This one exceeds my expectations. Acidity? Check. $11? Sold (maybe I should expect more.)
The fact that it comes from SLH, only 200 cases and the producer is highly regarded by people that I don’t know is just icing on the cake.
This was a no brainer for me. I don’t have any Pinot left in my wine cellar, or I should say pantry closet. Actually, I’ve taken over the coat closet too already.
It’s hard to love wine in a small house.
No clue yet where to put this when it gets here. Gonna have to drink faster
I do appreciate hearing from the winery and also what ideal drink temp is. Probably a hour or half should do in fridge. My house runs at about 76.
Used to have a small wine fridge, but they died too fast.
Before lockdown, it was much easier to sneak wine cases into house. Now husband works from home and I can’t quickly find a spot for the heavy box.
Not sure where he thinks all those bottles come from we love to drink
For 15 years now I have been making Pinot Noir from the Tondre vineyard for my mentor Richard G. Peterson. I have always enjoyed all of the Tudor wines I have tasted. So, I’m in. Look forward to tasting the Tudor, knowing what Santa Lucia Highlands can produce.
@ScottHarveyWine A Scott Harvey Pinot? Why do you tease us?!?
@KNmeh7 @ScottHarveyWine
Actually a Jana wine to be precise.
Scott, you going to have any more of this in the works anytime soon?
@KNmeh7 @rjquillin In 2012 Dr. Peterson had more wine than he wanted to bottle. So with a little blending (so the wine wasn’t the same as Dr. Peterson,s) I bottled the extra under the Jana label. About 50 cases.
This website ensures that monthly I get a dirty look from my wife when I try to sneak a case into the basement. Thanks casemates!
@pete0744 And I thought I was the only one who did that
@djy2g33 @pete0744
I’ve run out of stash locations, volumetrically.
I just opened a bottle of this from a case… looks a little cloudy and doesn’t taste like Pinot. Chunks of sediment in first pour. Anyone else try it yet? I’ll sample another bottle to see if it’s a trend…
@bfast OK it was just the one bottle. Hopefully it stays at that.
I already drank 2 bottles of this. Well I did have a wee bit of help there
So good.
We are sad we didn’t get the full case. This wine is a great summer red. Tart cherry, light, and dry and wonderful.