California Cult Pinot Noir Wine Tasting

“It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend; one's present or future thirst; the excellence of the wine; or any other reason.”  - Latin saying

I always say everyday above ground is reason to drink great wines!  And I need some wine drinking people to help me drink some of the best small producers of Pinot Noir from California.

And since we recently acquired a nice little collection of the finest California pinot noir like; Marcassin, Peter Michael, Williams Seylem, Kosta Brown, Occidental and Rhys just to name a few, I thought it was time to see just who makes the best pinot noir in California.  As I like to say we are doing scientific work with wine and on this evening very high level California pinot noir.    

Join us as we experience ten of the top small producers of pinot noir from California.  The fee for this tasting which includes dinner and gratuity is $295 + tax for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.

California Cult Pinot Noir Wine Tasting

Friday July 10th

7:30pm

2006 Hanzell Pinot Noir Sonoma

2012 Marcassin 'Marcassin Vineyard' Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

2014 Aubert Wines Ritchie Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2014 Cirq Bootlegger's Hill Pinot Noir Russian River Valley

2014 Kosta Browne Gap's Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

2014 Occidental-Kistler Vineyards 'SWK Vineyard' Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

2014 Rhys Vineyards Horseshoe Hillside Pinot Noir Santa Cruz Mountain

2014 Williams Selyem Hirsch Vineyard Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

2017 Peter Michael 'Clos du Ciel' Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

Menu

Selection of Cheese and Charcuterie

Duck Confit and Wild Mushroom Pancake with Hoisin BBQ

Iberico Pork Loin Wrapped in Prosciutto served over Black Bean Puree with Cherry Salsa

Brie and Strawberry Tart

The fee for this tasting which includes dinner and gratuity is $295 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food allergies or dietary restrictions and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.

All the wines from these great producers on SALE!!

A bit about Marcassin Winery:

Opinions about producers and their wines are as varied as the many different varietals and styles of wines produced in the world today.  There are many “in the know”, wine lovers that will tell you the highly rated/limited production “cult wines” of California are overpriced.  With the nation’s leading wine critics scoring many of these $300+ wines consistently in the 95+ point range, it would seem that the quality is not an issue.  So, if you want to drink wines from producers like:  Screaming Eagle, Bryant Family, Colgin, Araujo, Kistler, Schrader and Marcassin, you have to be in the six figure+ range in the income category.  So, are these wines overpriced?  We will refer to the old adage that “price is only relative to what you can afford.”

If you are infinitely wealthy and want to start a winery in California that aspires to be in the leagues of these great producers one of the surest ways to get immediate attention is to hire one of the top winemakers in the industry and in California her name is Helen Turley.  Helen made her name by fashioning rich, polished Cabernets for B.R. Cohn, Bryant Family, Peter Michael, Colgin and others.  When she and her husband, John Wetlaufer, started their own winery in 1990, Marcassin Estate, it quickly earned its reputation with stunning Chardonnays. For all that, Pinot Noir was always the goal.

In an interview with the Wine Spectator Helen’s partner and husband tells part of their story.  "This is what we wanted to do from the beginning," says Wetlaufer, 57, his goatee sprinkled with gray, his black hair thinning at the part, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes. "The Chardonnay only came first because we couldn't find vineyards we wanted to buy Pinot Noir grapes from."  Today, the cutting edge for Pinot Noir in California is on the cool outer reaches of the Sonoma Coast. Williams Selyem already had made stunningly original wines from the region's Summa and Hirsch vineyards. Turley and Wetlaufer discovered the area's potential some 14 years ago, when they tasted a Sea Ridge Pinot Noir.  "The wine had something we hadn't found in those from Carneros or Russian River Valley," says Wetlaufer. "There was something that reminded us of Burgundy."

In 1990, Turley went to see a property for sale just up the road from the vines that made that wine. "There was a special feeling about the place," she says. "Of course, we also got backhoes in there, did soil samples and backed it up with science. But it just felt right from the start."  The vineyard rises from 1,200 to 1,350 feet about 3.5 miles from the ocean. "The first ridge is too cold. The third ridge is too warm. Like the mama bear, this one is just right," says Turley, 57, who stands 6-feet tall, with steely blue eyes and medium-length grayish blond hair. "It's a warm spot in a cool region."

By 1991 they had planted 6.5 acres, using California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones that they had been scoping out for years, plus a few of the newly available Dijon clones.  In 1995, birds ate most of the initial crop.  "We made one barrel of Pinot Noir,"  Wetlaufer sighs. They installed bird-netting for 1996, and the resulting wine earned (96) points from Wine Spectator. Marcassin 2002, tasted from barrel, has amazing richness and power; the berry, cherry, plum, mineral and earth flavors seem to explode out of nothing, the texture is so fine and elegant.

What does it take to make wine like that? Attention to every detail, like the close-spaced (and therefore harder to work) vineyard. Close spacing, Wetlaufer argues, allows each vine to put all its energy into fewer grapes, improving balance and concentration. The average in California when they planted the vineyard was around 600 vines per acre; Marcassin's vineyards range from 1,100 to 4,000 vines per acre, the density found in Burgundy.

Their winemaking process also looks to Burgundy, especially to Henri Jayer, whose Burgundies the two admire above all others. That includes cold-soaking the freshly harvested and ruthlessly culled grapes in stainless steel fermentors sized precisely to accommodate designated portions of the vineyard. Turley gently sprinkles the fermenting wine to moisten the cap, rather than punching it down. She only allows de-stemmed whole berries in the fermentors, because stems can add rough tannins.

Even after the wine in the fermentors is dry, the whole berries still hold some fermentable sugar; when the must is pressed and transferred to barrels, the fermentation actually finishes in the barrel. Turley believes this extra fermentation creates silkier wine that better integrates the barrel flavors.

Marcassin makes several other Pinot Noirs. One is from Blue Slide Ridge, a vineyard adjacent to Marcassin's own. Owned by the Martinelli family, for whom Turley and Wetlaufer consult, Blue Slide Ridge seems to make a wine of greater fruit intensity but less complexity than that from Marcassin's own vines. Another source is Three Sisters, just down the road. A final bottling, significantly softer and more plummy, comes from Bondi Home Ranch, several miles away in the rolling hills near Sebastopol.