Traveling Light Relay

We don’t even know when our next GINI going to be, and I’m writing this blog (What’s going on??)  Actually I’ve meant to write as soon as we had our last tasting, but somehow I just rather to write something else.  I was more excited than usual coming to this wine taste, reason being, I was bringing one bottle from my “collection” (all of 3 bottles)  I have this Pinot Noir I bought about one year ago.  I bought it because I read it in a wine column from the Wall Street Journal.  The column was describing their wine country trip in Napa Valley.  So of all the wine they mentioned, LCBO carried only one of them, the Pinot Noir from Russian River Valley.  It wasn’t cheap, well above $40, but I bought two anyway.  I gave one to my dad, and to my surprise, he finished rather quickly, and I didn’t even have a sip.  I can only assume that it was good, him finishing it so quickly.

We had this wine taste on December 29, a Friday night, so naturally we had dinner as well.  To go with Burgundy and Pinot Noir, we went with rotisserie chicken.  We were gonna have Swiss Charlet, but Aaron read an article from Toronto Star, recommending a BBQ place and calls it the best rotisserie chicken in Toronto area.  The place is called “Joe Boo’s Cookoos” and it’s actually in Thornhill.  It was indeed very good chicken.  BTW, thanks to Kwong T for providing his place, allowing us to eat and drink.

We went back to the blind tasting this time, so all bottles with brown bags covered up.  We just know one thing before hand; bottle number two had a broken cork in it (first time happen to us!) So we ended up having to decant the wine (to avoid getting the cork while drinking)  But Vincent W says that you don’t usually need to decant Pinot Noir/Burgundy.

First bottle is a Pinot Noir from Oregon.  A few of us were quite certain of it while blind tasting.  It is the youngest of all, and It was quite fruity and acidic; it didn’t taste much like other Pinot Noir we had before.

Second bottle was a Burgundy, the one with the broken cork.  The reason we tasted Burgundy with other Pinot Noir is that most wines from Burgundy are made from Pinot Noir.  There is a few things to learn from looking at the label.  One thing is that French for Burgundy is “Bourgogne”.  Another thing is that, in most cases, the more specific the place, the better the wine.  So in our case, Givry is the name of a village, quite specific.  1er Cru, or Premier Cru, indicates the status of the wine; only 10 percent of all Burgundy’s wine.  It ranks second to Grand Cru, which represents fewer than 2 percent of Burgundy wines.  I also found out that the terms are reversed in Bordeaux, with Premier Cru superior.  A few of us thought this one was quite different from bottle #3 and #4, so we speculate that this one is my California Pinot Noir, not Burgundy.  I’m not sure how others tasted this bottle, leather is the only one thing came to my mind.

Third bottle is the one I brought, Sebastopol Vineyards Dutton Ranch Pinot Noir.  I read it somewhere that a lot of wine drinkers had their first revelation about wine with Burgundy.  I think this might be the case for me, except it’s not a Burgundy, it’s Russian River Pinot Noir (close enough?)  This was my first time being so decisive and say, “this one tastes really good”  And apparently quite a few others agreed with me, looking at everyone’s rankings.  But I’m still not totally sure, as that one great taste only happened to me a couple sip; I wonder if it’s the way I’m drinking it.  In any case, I’m glad that I really like that taste… that indescrible taste.  I re-read the column in WSJ, I realize they describe it perfectly; soulful tastes of truffles and strong tea.  Yes! That’s what I tasted.

Finally the last bottle is a Burgundy.  Nuits Saint Georges, name of another village, is also Preimer Cru (I believe)  Truth be told, I was so impressed by the previous bottle, I kinda forgot about this one. –KC

The GINI Burgundy/Pinot Noir Index