2007 Vineyard Selection Process: Part Three

Below you'll find a summary of our tasting notes and some additional thoughts on each of the Pinots we tried during our grand "kitchen table" tasting event earlier this year.

Hein Family Vineyard, Anderson Valley - The first thing one notices with the Hein is the awesome deep garnet/ruby color of the juice. You can click on the picture to get a closer look. On the nose this wine showed a combination of cherry and black raspberry, with hints of cola, spice, and earthiness. Even at this early stage multiple aromas and flavor profiles were readily apparent. The Hein was medium in weight and bursting with rich tannins. Lots of "grippiness" on the palate as the experts like to say. Clearly this baby needed some more time in barrel to settle down. There was good acidity in the wine and no obvious "hotness" on the nose or throat, indicating nice balance. Overall, this wine was already showing lots of complexity and the fact that it had been in barrel for only about 5 months kind of blew us away.

Wentzel Vineyard, Anderson Valley - The Wentzel was simply an awesomely delicious wine. Good color, light to medium bodied, with classic Pinot aromas. Lots of cherry and red fruit framed by assertive cola notes. Some floral qualities were also present. Much less tannin in this wine in comparison to the Hein. It was very smooth and silky in texture - an elegant wine. 

Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands - Beautiful deep color. Bold notes of cherry and raspberry. Medium bodied with nice balance of fine tannins and acidity. Still developing character, not as far along as the other two.

AND THE PINOT WINNER IS......

While any one of these wines would have been a fantastic choice, we chose the Hein due to its intriguing complexity and overall potential to develop into something really special. Only time will tell how the Hein we have in barrel now will evolve. We will be visiting Crushpad's facility in a month or so to try some barrel samples and we'll be sure to let you know how things are progressing. In the meantime, here is a recent update we got from Crushpad regarding the 2007 Hein Pinot:

"At pressing, the Hein fermentations have displayed solid mid-red colors with purple hues. Lifted spice aromatics match well with the tight fruit and assertive tannins. While, it's still very early to call, the '07s from Hein are shaping-up to truly impress. The pattern continues with yet another strong showing from this Anderson Valley vineyard."

In Part Four we'll talk about the two really interesting Chardonnays we had to choose from.

Jeremy