Pinot Noir for $20 suggestions...
 

Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek 2001...any other suggestions???

"R&M" > in
m...
> Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek
> 2001...any other suggestions???

2001 Saintsbury Carneros, 2002 Schug Carneros (US). Got a better one
lately (to my taste) from another label, dozen of them on the way now, I
don't have the name at hand sadly, should be able to get it though.

Assuming that this inquiry is not limited narrowly to US Pinots (which offer
only a small fraction of the candidates of Pinot Noir in this price range),
attached is my current standard tirade on good-value $10-$20 Burgundies.
(Originally posted to an HTML site last year.) All of those examples are
100% Pinot Noir also, and there are other important sources besides Burgundy
but that one is the largest, it invented Pinot Noir. Products such as those
below may not always be found lying around on demand, but instead you have
to watch for them, in my experience, and sometimes keep them cool for a year
or two but it pays off. All the more reason to develop a regular practice
of tasting of new wines, such as a tasting group! -- M.

--
As a rule I have found the great $10-$20 values among exceptional Bourgognes
Rouges, regionals (Beaune, Nuits, HCdB, etc), and the less-fashionable
village wines -- Givry, Mercurey, even Rully, all of those from the Côte
Challonaise, but sometimes even more fashionable villages than those. Thus a
few years ago the 1996 Jadot B.-Rouges at $11 was in big US supermarkets and
it tasted to promise -- and delivered -- good meaty stuff in a few years,
Jeeze Louise -- no one who bought and stored it well but got value. (Jadot
does many good values and has expanded impressively in recent decades.) By
the way a good merchant lately showed me an example -- Jadot 2000
Chorey-les-Beaune at $12 in California, "you may find it a little hollow,"
he said; well, I did -- not the 96 Rouges or 91 Lafarge Rouges or 93 Jadot
Beaune-Bressandes or several other 93s, or 95 de Villaine Mercurey "Montots"
(doing well now) or all those 94s that got sold off in 98 as everyone
expects the 2000s and 2001s to be later or the 96 Jadot Santenay (another
good-value, non-hip appelation) "Clos de Malte" [drinking well now as the 99
promises to also] or the 96 Hudelot-Noellat Rouges [STILL developing] or the
98 Groffier Rouge or 99 Lafarge Rouge or others ALL of which were under $20
and some at $10 -- but what it has around its hollow part seemed to me
creditable and true to region, certainly for US $12. [September 2003.]

Addendum 10/04 -- Joining its predecessors cited above, the currently
available 2002 Jadot Santenay "Clos de Malte" looks like it is going to kick
butt. (May be a little over $20, but worth it.)

"R&M" > wrote in message
m...
> Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek 2001...any other
suggestions???

Acacia Pinot Noir and Shug (Sonoma and Carneros). Even Kenwood Pinot Noir.

M

"R&M" > wrote in message
m...
> Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek 2001...any other
> suggestions???

We've seen the Brooks 2002 Pinot going for $15-17, and it's nice. The
winemaker is sadly dead of a heart attack this fall, so there won't be more
coming.

In article > , sdcruisers@cwnet
..com says...
>
>Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek 2001...any other
suggestions???

In about that price range (US$21 Costco), I like the Acacia Carneros. It is
probably at its best about 1-2 years from release (properly cellared), but is
very, very drinkable upon release. They also do a Beckstoffer [SP?] single
vineyard, that is about US$50, but I've not found enough difference to put
down more than 6 blts of it.

OR has a ton of really great US PN's in that range, and one cannot go too
wrong with any of them. They are a bit more toward the mushroom, damp earth
characters, than the CA, especially the Carneros PN's, but very good at their
pp, just less fruit forward.

Hunt

As a non-Pinot Noir fan, this is one of the few that I have enjoyed recently:

http://www.adwnz.com/Pages/wines/our...noir_2002.html

I don't know if it is available in the U.S. but I imagine it would be within your
price bracket if it is.

Incidentally, only by searching for a link for this did I realise that Montana is now
a part of Allied Domeque. These people have established a reputation for wholesale
vandalism and destruction of some of the U.K.'s oldest brands of beer, so I hope that
they don't do the same to Montana and other brands such as Tatachilla and St.
Hallett.

Regards,

Ian

"R&M" > wrote in message
m...
> Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek 2001...any other suggestions???

"Max Hauser" in ...
> "R&M" > in
> m...
> > Have tried domaine carneros and carneros creek
> > 2001...any other suggestions???
>
> 2001 Saintsbury Carneros, 2002 Schug Carneros (US). Got
> a better one lately (to my taste) from another label, I don't have
> the name at hand sadly, should be able to get it though. . . .


Sorry about that, the last wine was actually again the 2002 Schug Carneros.
Which I encountered unusually. First I was given a bottle and asked for an
appraisal, knowing nothing about it (that tasting note is attached). Lately
I tried it again during a restaurant meal and decided to buy some. $18 in
the US (to shippable states) directly from the winery with 10% discount
(general?) -- I did not do the order, I was part of someone else's. (I
hope all this is useful information for someone. I envy those with the
patience, or the fingers, to type in lots of tasting notes.)


--
2002 Schug Carneros Pinot Noir Tasted 11 July 04. -- MH

(From --, 7 July 04, about $20 at winery and reportedly stocked at Whole
Foods. Identified by -- as prospective good value.)


(NB : The letter "T" indicates where I began actual tasting as well as
smelling.)

Bright berryish, stemmy, meaty. Suggestions of young oak. T an un-Pinot,
or un-traditional-Pinot, raspberry note is conspicuous. Orange peel,
vanilla. I'm reminded of the particular effects in the younger-generation
Dujac label. Impression of strong alcohol. Lots of fruit acid but not the
matching tannin to carry it to long development. Green-pepper sagelike
vegetable stem that is not really my style. Later smells: Caramel-clove
note, almost candied apple. Partial oak toast?