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92 Pinot Noir

92 Pinot Noir Wine Details
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Description: Prosser grape grower, Harold Pleasant, originally brought me two bins of this Swiss clone of Pinot called Klevner Mariafeld in 1989 and asked me to see what it made. I wasn't really interested in this variety, but thought I'd better humor him and went through the motions of making a medium, bodied red wine. Six or eight months later I was sampling it from the barrel and found it had some real possibilities, a clean taste from ample acid, adequate but not too much tannin and a nice strawberry/farmyard flavor- a pleasant barnyard aroma, of horse lather, fermenting hay and fruit. All in all, a very good food wine- in fact, we drink this at home several times a week- it really goes well with a lot of foods- our favorite is linguini with smoked salmon and pesto and we also enjoy it with Red beans and Rice. I haven't made any of this since '92 and will be sad when this lot is gone- so had better make some this year.

Varietal Definition
Pinot Noir:
The name is derived from the French words for ‘pine’ and ‘black’ alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France. It is widely considered to produce some of the finest wines in the world, but is a difficult variety to cultivate and transform into wine. By volume most Pinot Noir in America is grown in California with Oregon coming in second. Other regions are Washington State and New York.During 2004 and the beginning of 2005, Pinot Noir became considerably more popular amongst consumers in the United States, possibly because of the movie Sideways. Being lighter in style, it has benefited from a trend toward more restrained, less alcoholic wines. It is the delicate, subtle, complex and elegant nature of this wine that encourages growers and winemakers to cultivate this difficult grape. Robert Parker has described Pinot Noir: "When it's great, Pinot Noir produces the most complex, hedonistic, and remarkably thrilling red wine in the world."


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