A By Acacia Pinot Noir
Continuing the discussion last episode in which we
referenced the movie “Sideways” and how it largely put the until-then lower key
Pinot Noir on the map, this, then, is a wine featuring that particular grape
and one in which it demonstrates much of what that wine can be and why it has
maintained a lot of the fire that the movie lent it.
As to this particular brand, I’ve sort of been fascinated by
the forays of celebrities into alcohol, be it Vince Neil or Sammy Hagar’s
brands of booze (not a fan of either) or Francis Ford Coppola or Geoff Tate
sticking their toes into the wine world or Iron Maiden or Motorhead putting out
various concoctions of beer or even branching out further. If someone slaps a
band logo on something like that, odds are pretty good I’m going to try it and
I have no shame about that. In this case, I stumbled on this one trying to find
a wine from the vineyard that Maynard James Keenan owned and got things really
confused.
It was all to my benefit, though. This is a gorgeous,
gorgeous wine, rich and vibrant, with a good deal of balance. It is also one of
the fastest to aerate as you can get into this 15 – 20 minutes in and be good
to go, though, like with all reds, more time improves it. You can expect a lot
of lingering taste with this one. It’s a very smooth, silky wine and you can
catch bits of cherry and some of the darker berries and even a dash of plum in
there. This is another where you want to catch an older one (this is also what
they frequently mean by a “Burgundy” wine and some of them will store forever),
though this particular one is aged in oak, which imbues it with some subtle
hints as well as really adding a lot of that smoothness I mentioned.
This wine clocks in generally around $13 and is usually not
on SPA. It is, however, a Mixed, as I will pick up bottles of it when I’ve got
the urge for a healthy glass of Pinot. Pinot is still one of those grapes that
carries a degree of prestige and hence, expense and what that means is
generally higher dollars shelled out. Still, for under a $20 spot, this is a
very good value.
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