2013 Le Pianelle Bramaterra

13% abv
Am really enjoying wines with reasonable alcohol levels. 
This 2013 vintage wine has really developed nicely and come into its own. 
Have been working my way through a half case. 
Enjoyed the first half of the bottle yesterday,  however today is when it really hit its stride. Very impressive melange of flavor from the blend of 80% Nebbiolo,  10% Croatina, 10% Vespolina. 
There a delicious upfront offering on the palate of mid-weight , savory Nebbiolo followed by a fascinating finish completed by the Croatina and Vespolina. 
Clearly,  very high quality fruit and a deft hand with the winemaking.
Somehow, the style echoes Quintarelli ( sans appassiamento)...
Highly recommended...
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Detail on Le Pianelle....

http://omwines.com/le-pianelle


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2013 La Gerla Brunello di Montalcino

Beautiful 13.5 abv
Alluring violets on the nose.
Delicious melange of morello cherry, fine tannins, balsamic spice and anise on the finish.... elegantly mellow acidity to make it food friendly ...
Very enjoyable now, but should improve with further cellaring. 
Exceeded expectations 👍🍷
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Producer notes:
Fattoria La Gerla, named for the large, old-fashioned, conical baskets that grape-harvesters used to carry on their backs, was founded in 1976 by the late Sergio Rossi. Originally from Milan, Mr. Rossi purchased the property in 1975 from Tedina Biondi-Santi, the daughter of Tancredi Biondi-Santi, who had inherited the property after her father’s passing. The purchase of what was then called the Podere Colombaio Santi included an ancient farmhouse and 6.5 hectare of vineyards. Mr. Rossi, who by then had been managing the Altesino-Caparzo estate for several years, renamed the property La Gerla and set about restoring the estate and replanting the vines using selection massale. His first vintage was 1976, making La Gerla one of the first 35 bottlers of Brunello di Montalcino; these days, there are 280. 

Today, La Gerla consists of 11.5 hectares, divided between the original 6.5 hectare vineyard in Canalicchio (Montalcino) and an additional 5 hectares in Castelnuovo dell’Abate, where Mr. Rossi was presciently the first to plant vines in earnest. The estate, now run by vineyard manager/director Alberto Passeri and winemaker Vittorio Fiore, makes five wines, all made entirely from Sangiovese Grosso, the only grape planted on the property.

La Gerla Brunello di Montalcino is comprised of a blend of both the Canalicchio and Castelnuovo vineyards.

[Sourcing from both northern part and southern part of Montalcino region?]

The grapes are kept cool for 7-8 days before fermentation, which lasts up to 15 days. The wine is then transferred to large 50-100hl casks and is aged for three years, racked twice a year, then bottled. It is then aged for an additional year before release.
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Paired with spicy beef and pork stuffed ravioli, garnished with sea salt, tellicherry pepper, asiago cheese and tasty Ligurian olive oil 😊

2008 Produttori del Barbaresco Muncagota Riserva

O-M-G... this wine is in a great spot right now...

Dark cherry, truffle, tar & roses, with a perfect kiss of tannin on the finish. Subtle florals and very nice sottobosco on the nose.

Slight browning in color hints at the delicious tertiary nuances that are evident. 

Paired wonderfully with ribeye steak grilled over cherrywood coals, accompanied by a caesar salad.
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Producer notes from Antonio Galloni (Oct 2012):

"....Produttori del Barbaresco, one of the world’s top cooperatives, has been making terrific wines for five decades. As good as the wines were in the past, my feeling was that at times the full potential of these sites – widely considered among the very best in Barbaresco – wasn’t being fully captured. The Produttori must have thought the same thing. Beginning in 2001, the Produttori began incentivizing their member growers to cultivate higher quality grapes. At the same time, the winery began a gradual process of rotating out their large 100-hectoliter casks and replacing them with smaller 50 and 75-hectoliter casks. The 2008 Riservas are the culmination of all of that work.....

..... Simply put, these are the very best young Riservas I have ever tasted from the Produttori. The wines will require considerable patience, but they are stacked and packed with tremendous concentration of fruit allied to structure. It is a vintage Piedmont drinkers love to love, where the individual signatures of each terroir are clearly delineated. Best of all, the Riservas remain exceedingly fairly priced considering the quality of what is in the bottle. Congratulations to Aldo Vacca, longtime oenologist Gianni Testa and the entire team at Produttori del Barbaresco for this magnificent collection of 2008 Barbareschi...."
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Muncagota Vineyard notes:

Vineyard size: 4.5 ha (11 acres)

Exposure: South East

Elevation: 250 - 300 meters (820 – 980 feet)

Vineyard Owners: Bellora, Lignana, Viglino.

This single vineyard looks South/East, facing the cooler morning sunshine instead of the warmer afternoon sun. Because of that, the Muncagota vineyard shows beautiful floral characteristics and often a specific mint character on the nose. Calcareous soil and a low level of sand gives to the wines of Muncagota extremely focused fruit and firm, stylish tannin. Muncagota is a perfect example of the elegant and intense qualities that make Barbaresco one of the most interesting and unique wines of the world. First produced by Produttori del Barbaresco, as Moccagatta, in 1967. Muncagota is the piedmontese dialect version of the word Moccagatta, same vineyard, different spelling.

2015 Kelley Fox Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard (McMinnville)

13% abv (nice!!!)

Medium weight wine ...sour cherry and pomegranate with hints of allspice on the palate. Pop and pour into decanter...seems a bit monolithic at first.
Opens up after a couple of hours into a beauty... palate expands with hints of blood orange and anise .. Exemplary complexity for such a young wine .... whole cluster ?

Day 3 notes:
Brambly red and blue fruit... very satisfying savory finish that makes you pick up the glass again for another sip. Rich flavor and complexity without weight. Spice and subtle fennel notes. A winemaker at the top of her game. Easily competes with the better 1er cru wines from Burgundy. 
Paired deliciously on day 3 with cold lamb sandwich garnished simply with Coleman's spicy English mustard... 

Grapes are sourced from upper Momtazi Vineyard blocks comprised of Pommard clones on Jory and Nekia soils.... 30% to 50% whole cluster depending on the block. 2015 and 2016 vintages were more ripe so 100% whole cluster was utilized. 

(thanks to Dustin Swenson at Kelley Fox Wines for this detailed information).

2016 Thomas Pinot Noir Dundee Hills

13.4% abv

Decanted and aerated for two hours. Faint funk and slight spritz that dissipates quickly with aeration.

Palate of red cherry with savory blood orange becoming more prominent on the finish over the course of the evening.... complemented by cardamom spice and sous bois on the nose.

Nice early stage complexity. A wine that you can't put down. Very, very nice. One of my favorite pinot noirs.

375 cases per year produced from 4 acres.

John Thomas planted his dry-farmed site in 1984 to a tight 3090 vines per acre on sedimentary WillaKenzie soil. 

Current planting is comprised of approximately 75% Pommard clone and 25% Wadenswil clone.



After fermentation, the free run juice is drained from tank and the pomice (skins, seeds etc.) is left behind. No press wine is used. 

Thomas vineyard is located at the far northwest corner of the Dundee Hills AVA (see map).







Paired with rack of lamb grilled over cherrywood coals, grilled mixed vegetables,  marinated mushrooms and a pickled Vidalia onion salad.

Olive Nostre Olio Extra Vergine di Oliva Riviera Ligure "Riviera dei Fiori"

An exquisitely elegant Ligurian finishing oil. Light bodied with delicious fruity flavor and nose.  Limited availability at Ferrucci's...

2015 Cristom Pinot Noir Jessie Vineyard

Haven't had Cristom pinot noir in ages...and boy, this is a good one! 👍🍷

Sour cherry up front giving way to tasty red and blue fruit with a mouthwateringly savory, whole-cluster finish that goes on, making you want to take another sip and so it goes...

My only gripe (and a somewhat of a nitpicking one)  is that the finish has ever so slightly too much heat at this stage of development... perhaps something that will calm with further cellaring. Chinese spice and subtle florals on the nose complete the alluring profile.

Josh Raynolds' impeccable reporting provides us with historical background:

"...Cristom's Steve Doerner, who was a pioneer of the [graceful Oregon] style, has become a sort of wizened visionary for a new generation of winemakers. Doerner, who worked at Burgundy's Domaine Dujac in the late 1970s, began to hone his style, which emphasizes whole-cluster fermentations, at Josh Jensen's Calera Winery in the early 1980s and has further refined it since moving to Oregon to help establish this winery [Cristom] in 1992. While Doerner's style of spicy, highly floral Pinot is now commonplace, that was not the case when he first began to make his mark, a fact that he acknowledges with a shrug and slight embarrassment. While he has made small tweaks here and there to his winemaking style over the decades, he told me he still has the same philosophy, "which is to get elegant, complex wines that show their place..."

Paired deliciously with teryaki tuna steaks, Lebanese rice and broccoli-pear salad.

Postscript:
It is entirely possible that my sensitivity to slight "heat" on the finish is due to degradation of my palate from the high pollen count that we have this spring.



Producer Notes

Vineyard Overview

Jessie Vineyard was established in 1994 after founder of Cristom Vineyards, Paul Gerrie, saw the potential of a steep, wooded, east-facing hillside when the property was purchased in 1992.  When planting began in 1994, the vineyard was named after Paul’s paternal grandmother Jessie Summers.

Jessie Vineyard tends to produce Pinot Noirs that exude an enticing scent of purple and blue floral notes that make the wine instantly appealing.  Drawn in by the deep floral aromas and minerality, Jessie can also be recognized by savory aromas that often call to mind rare-beef. On the palate, black fruits and a deeper-darker-fuller mouth-feel and alluring texture can often characterize Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noirs.

The views from the top of the east-facing Jessie Vineyard are some of Cristom’s most spectacular. On a clear day, the Cascade Mountains (including Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams) sparkle.  First released with the 1998 vintage, Jessie is typically deep, rich and floral with multiple layers of flavor.

Soils 

Ranging in elevation from 320 ft to 550 ft (98 m to 168 m), this 11.53 acre (4.67 hectare) site is one of the steepest planted in the Willamette Valley and our most challenging to farm.  The entire vineyard is planted at the high density of 2,311 vines/acre (5,710 vines/hectare) and is notorious at the estate for its shallow soil at the top of the hillside.  The strategy to plant densely creates competition among the neighboring vines and forces the roots deep into the topsoil, yielding smaller clusters and producing more concentrated flavors. The shallow, 15.5 million year old Columbia River Basalt soils known as Witzel and Ritner run the western edge of the vineyard at the top of the hill and are the most shallow soils on the entire estate.  The vines struggle here - these soils have a natural devigorating effect on the vines, slowing vegetative growth and focusing the plants energy on fruit production.  Deeper basalt soils including Jory and Nekia, that both have greater water holding capacity, extend down the steep hillside and the eastern edge of the vineyard boasts some of the deepest soils on the Cristom estate.

Clones & Rootstocks

Planting for the 11.53 acre Jessie Vineyard began in 1994 with Pommard and Dijon clones 115, 114 and 777. By 2000, Pinot Noir clones 113 and 667 were added and the vineyard now has six different clones of Pinot Noir grafted on three different rootstocks: 2.54 acres (1.03 ha) or 22% of the vineyard is planted with Dijon clone 115 grafted on 3309C rootstock; 2.31 acres (0.93 ha) or 20% is Pommard on Riparia Gloire; 1.85 acres (0.75 ha) or 16% is Dijon 114 on 3309C; 1.5 acres (0.61 ha) or 13% of Jessie is planted to Dijon clone 667 on 101-14 rootstock; 1.5 acres (0.61 ha) or 13% is Dijon 777 on 3309C; 0.92 acres (0.37 ha) or 8% of the total vineyard is Dijon 113 on Riparia Gloire, and the remaining 0.92 acres (0.37 ha) or 8% is Dijon 667 grafted on Riparia Gloire.

2004 Le Chiuse di Sotto - Gianni Brunelli Brunello di Montalcino

14% abv

A pleasant medium-bodied, if somewhat one-dimensional, Brunello. Tannins have softened nicely letting tart, savory morello cherry and leather come to the fore. Benefited nicely from a couple of hours ir aeration in the decanter. Very closed nose (or maybe my sinuses are clogged up from the pollen). I was hoping for more evolved tertiary character in this wine...

Paired nicely with prime NY strip steak grilled over cherry-wood coals, garlic-parmigiano-proscuitto mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach with roasted garlic and a delicious beet salad.