Pinot Days 2010: Central Coast Pinot Noir Seminar

PINOT DAYS 2010 – SANTA LUCIA HIGHLANDS, SANTA RITA HILLS AND SANTA MARIA VALLEY SEMINAR – Fort Mason, San Francisco, California (6/26/2010)

This was my fourth straight year of attending the Pinot Days Saturday seminars. These annual seminars are a good opportunity to sit with a winemaker or two and compare notes on wines we’re tasting, to hear from winemakers or winery representatives about our 16 wines, and to sample a number of wines that I might not otherwise have a chance to try. There were three of these seminars this year, and this one was the first of the day this past Saturday.

The format was the one that has evolved and stuck in the last few years: four flights of four wines each, all blind. You taste for 8 to 10 minutes, and then Lisa Rigisich (who along with husband Steven produces the Pinot Days events) reveals the wines in the flight, starting with the one on your left, one by one, asking the winemaker or winery representative on hand to tell us something about that wine, or their winemaking philosophy. Midway through that round of winemaker comments, before you know what the last wine or two is, you’re dumping out your wines so that the volunteers who pour for the seminar can set up your next round of four glasses, and so on. Which means you’re spending about two minutes or so per wine, getting some sense of it, but it’s not hanging around long enough for you to let it open up or evolve in the glass. In my case, I spend the time jotting down some notes and forcing myself to give a rating, try to figure out which wine it might be (probably one of four on the pre-printed list if they’ve told us the flight’s theme in advance), and take pictures of the winery reps when they speak, and the flights of wine, for this blog. Phew! Well, it keeps me busy for two hours, and I tend to learn something about a producer or two that I didn’t know much about before. And the whole thing is pretty well organized, I enjoy hearing from the winemakers, and tend to enjoy a lot of the wines too.

This and the other seminars were supposed to feature the 2008 vintage, but not all winemakers stick to the plan, so a few bring different vintages, but each seminar does, nonetheless, give a pretty good sense of that region’s experience of the vintage. In the case of the multiply plagued 2008 vintage, it’s a wonder that wine got made at all in many places. The Central Coast had frosts, continued drought, serious rains and thunderstorms during growing season, fires and then more frost in October. Some of the wines in this seminar were weaker than I’ve had from the same producers in prior years, presumably largely as a result of the difficult vintage, while many of the wines were actually surprisingly good, all things considered. On the whole, though, it’s a lighter vintage, with higher acidities and a lot more green notes (which are also due to an increasing trend of experimentation with some degree of whole clusters in the fermentation).

My strong favorite in tasting through the following 16 wines blind was the ’08 Lucia Garys’ Vineyard from Pisoni, followed by the ’07 Morgan Double L. I also admired the ’08 Rusack Solomon Hills (which continued the good showing of Rusacks from the Pinot Days trade tasting held the day before), the ’06 Arcadian Fiddlestix, the ’08 Pelerin Rosella’s and the ’08 Clos Pepe Vigneron Select. The Santa Lucia Highlands flight was the strongest flight of the four. The most amusing comments were from Peter Cargasacchi, as usual, who claimed, among other things, that the grapes for his ’07 Estate had been “destemmed by virgins, who then rolled the berries down their thighs and crushed them.” In the Q&A period, when asked whether those were female or male virgins, he jokingly admitted they were young boys. Wes Hagen was very articulate, as usual, about what drew him to making wine (he was inspired as a child by how animated and interesting his parents’ dinner guests got after drinking for awhile) and about how pretty much disastrous the ’08 vintage was at Clos Pepe.

I applaud all the winemakers for managing to produce something out of ’08 (at least those who showed something from ’08), and I hope many of them will consider using less new oak and whole cluster in the future, especially in such a relatively weak vintage.

Peter Cargasacchi

Wes Hagen

Santa Maria Valley Flight

• 2008 Rusack Pinot Noir Solomon Hills Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Dark cherry red color with pale meniscus; nice cherry, raspberry, baked cherry nose with a touch of heat; tasty, tart cherry, raspberry palate with good acidity; medium finish (91 pts.)
• 2008 CRU Pinot Noir Appellation Series – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Dark cherry red color; oak, rhubarb nose; oaky, rhubarb, tart cherry, baked rhubarb palate; medium finish (20% whole cluster; 667 clone) (85 pts.)
• 2008 Hug Cellars Pinot Noir Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Dark red color; green, dill, camphor nose; tight camphor, forest floor palate with green notes; medium finish (100% whole cluster; 100% new oak) (83 pts.)
• 2008 native9 Pinot Noir Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Medium red color with pale meniscus; tart cranberry, very tart red fruit nose; tart cranberry, tart red fruit palate with medium acidity and grip; medium-plus finish 88+ pts. (clones 1A, 2A, 113, 114, Swan, Benedict, Pommard; 100% whole cluster; 60% new French oak) (88 pts.)

Santa Rita Hills Flight

• 2006 Arcadian Pinot Noir Fiddlestix – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills
  Light medium cherry red color with pale meniscus; nice tart red fruit, tart cherry, mineral, floral nose; tasty, a little tight, tart cherry, cranberry palate with good acidity; medium finish (100% whole cluster; 667, 115 and a little Pommard) (91 pts.)
• 2007 Cargasacchi Pinot Noir Estate – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills
  Medium cherry red color with pale meniscus; big, ripe, black cherry, toasted French oak, berry nose; tight, ripe cherry, black cherry, obtrusive oak palate; medium finish (all destemmed “by virgins, who then rolled the berries down their thighs and crushed them”; 30 to 35% new oak) (84 pts.)
• 2007 Demetria Pinot Noir Cuvée Sandra – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills
  Medium red color with pale meniscus; oak, redwood, tart cherry, cranberry nose; oak, cranberry, tart red fruit palate; medium finish 88+ pts. (I think the oak should integrate with time) (88 pts.)
• 2008 Tantara Pinot Noir Lindsay’s Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Chalone
  Dark cherry red color; big cherry, raspberry nose; integrated vanilla oak, ripe and tart cherry, framboise palate with medium acidity; medium-plus finish 90% pts. (777 clone) (90 pts.)

Santa Lucia Highlands Flight

• 2008 Pelerin Pinot Noir Rosella’s Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
  Medium dark cherry red color with pale meniscus; rich cherry, framboise, baked cherry nose; ripe and spicy cherry, black cherry, framboise palate; medium finish (91 pts.)
• 2008 Testarossa Pinot Noir Garys’ Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
  Medium dark cherry red color; hibiscus, tart red fruit, rosehips nose; tart cherry, baked cherry, rhubarb pie palate; short-medium finish (87 pts.)
• 2008 Lucia Pinot Noir Garys’ Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
  Medium dark cherry red color; lovely framboise, ripe cherry nose; tasty, balanced, tart cherry, framboise, Asian spice, raspberry compote flavors that flow across the palate in a stately way; medium-plus finish (93 pts.)
• 2007 Morgan Pinot Noir Double L Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands
  Medium dark cherry red color with pale meniscus; floral, hibiscus, rosehips, spice nose; tart red fruit, spicy cherry, roses, rosehips, hibiscus palate with medium acidity; medium-plus finish (vineyard planted in 1996 to 14 different clones; organic and densely planted; needs 2 to 3 years) (92 pts.)

SRH and Santa Maria Valley Flight

• 2008 Clos Pepe Estate Pinot Noir Vigneron Select – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills
  Medium cherry red color with pale meniscus; oak with char, cherry nose; creamy textured, oak, tart cherry, tart red fruit, rhubarb palate; medium finish (the oak should integrate with time) (91 pts.)
• 2007 Riverbench Cellars Pinot Noir The Mesa Riverbench Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Medium red color with pale meniscus; VA, stemmy, forest floor nose; light bodied, tart red fruit, forest floor, tobacco palate; medium finish 86+ pts. (86 pts.)
• 2008 La Fenêtre Pinot Noir Le Bon Climat – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Maria Valley
  Light medium red color with pale meniscus; watermelon, light red fruit nose; lighter bodied, watermelon, tart Jolly Rancher and stems palate; medium finish (83 pts.)
• 2007 Zotovich Family Pinot Noir – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills
  Medium red color with pale meniscus; whole cluster, pine needles, green notes; tart red fruit, cinnamon palate that drops out mid-palate; short-medium finish (84 pts.)

site of seminar, in Landmark Building D at Fort Mason Center