Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [43]
In keeping with its climate affinities, our tasting will compare cool-zone and moderate-zone Pinot Noirs. The Flavor Map indicates the range of fruit styles that will characterize these wines—cranberries and red cherries in the cool zone, raspberries and black cherries in the moderate zone. And these are indeed the classic Pinot Noir descriptors. My tasting list is broken into price brackets, and as with the Chardonnays, you should choose wines from the same bracket for your comparison.
Pinot Noir Scorecard
Professional Ah, Pinot! Many wine pros share the view that, at its best, the grandeur of Pinot Noir is unsurpassed by any other wine. They also share the view that Pinot Noir is one unreliable grape. Consistent success with it is maddeningly elusive, particularly in its famous home base of Burgundy. Still, vintners there and the world over continue to tussle with this picky, difficult-to-grow vine, seduced by the possibility of that grandeur. This is why, in wine circles, Pinot Noir is often referred to as The Grail of winemaking—or, by some, the Heartbreak Grape.
Of all the major growing regions, California is the most consistent, followed by Oregon and then Burgundy. (As a relative newcomer, New Zealand Pinot Noir’s record there is still too young to call, but most pros are excited about the potential.) Supply (not much) and demand (it is The Grail) conspire to make even the most basic Pinot Noirs pricey compared to the other grapes in the Big Six. But devotees of the gorgeous flavor and silken texture of great Pinot are willing to pay—and to ride the style roller coaster from one vintage to the next.
Personal As I have already confessed, Pinot Noir is my favorite grape in the world (I give it extra points for being a major component in my all-time favorite wine—Champagne, of which more in Chapter 6). It is the wine of my dreams—the limpid violet shimmer, the perfumed berry scent, but most of all the silken texture, which leaves me speechless. Needless to say, I taste a lot of Pinot Noir, and the recommendations here are my favorites for flavor and consistency. I have even included my special discoveries—exceptions to the pricey rule that you could afford to drink every day. Let’s keep them between us, shall we?
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, both of which flourish in moderate climates, leave us little to explore in terms of varied fruit styles. The moderate climate zone of the Flavor Map paints a very accurate picture of these grapes’ fruit character, ranging from dark berries (blackberry, blueberry, blackcurrant) to plums. In fact, they are so consistent and similar in terms of flavor style that the most famous examples, the great chateau wines of Bordeaux, are usually blends of this dynamic duo. Elsewhere in the wine world, varietal Merlots and Cabernets often contain in their blend a dollop of their counterpart grape for balance. California even created a wine category, called Meritage (rhymes with heritage), for such blends made in the Bordeaux tradition.
Of course, there is still significant style diversity among Merlots and Cabernets from different regions and wineries, but the distinctions are not so much about fruit style. Rather, the notable style differences come in the areas of body, from medium to full, and flavor intensity, from subtle to strong.
We explored the first of these, body, in Chapter 3, when we compared a Merlot with a lower alcohol percentage to one whose percentage of alcohol by volume was slightly higher, illustrating the fact that, to the taster, alcohol is perceived as body. In that tasting, I pointed to the percentage of alcohol on the label as an obvious indicator of the wine’s body, but now you have another label clue—the region. Although we broadly classified them as moderate, the Cabernet and Merlot growing zones do vary somewhat,