Here in California, Pinot Noir has been elevated to a cult, superstar status with every producer proclaiming their love and respect for the variety… Let me offer a different perspective. Being a Zin producer in a cool climate region, I have the opportunity to hang out and work along side various Pinot growers and producers. In 2005, I assisted in harvesting a friends Pinot block for a very well-known producer who regularly scores 92-95 “points” in the Spectator and Parker for this single-vineyard designate. As the sugars rose from ripe to very ripe to heavily dimpled to eventual shrivel, the winery kept telling the grower, “oh it’s not ready- the mature flavor profiles aren’t there yet”, or “there’s no room in the tanks” and other various BS comments. Finally, at a mere 26.4 brix, we pulled off the totally decimated fruit, brown rachis and all and brought it to the winery’s crush pad, only to be greeted with a water hose and 50-LB bad of tartaric acid… true story. I was dumbfounded to witness the “frankenstienization” of this once beautiful lot of fruit (about 18 days prior to picking).

What pushed me over the edge was when this wine was recently released… What a tweaked, manipulated, engineered version of Pinot… It was like a machine… This was not Pinot Noir. The viscosity was absurd, the alcohol found itself in the convenient “14.1%”- which really means 14.8-15%, the fruit profile was somewhere between flat cherry cola and macerated bowl of overly ripe cooked stewed fruit. Of course it received high scores.

I for one will be banning ALL Pinot Noirs over 14%. Period. To all those growers, you are getting screwed out of 20-25% weight ($), and for all the producers who proclaim their love for the variety and choose to be a number chaser (Speculator and Parker) over a Pinot Purist, WE HAVE YOUR NUMBER!!!

BAN ALL PINOTS OVER 14%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!