Brian Loring, owner and winemaker of Loring Wine Company, is a confessed pinot noir fanatic. In 1999 he began making small lots of pinot noir wines using grapes purchased from highly regarded and carefully chosen vineyards. For 2006, he produced 7,000 cases of pinot noir from 14 vineyards in California, averaging 500 cases for each vineyard-designated wine. “I’m not trying to be Burgundian,” Loring told me a couple of weeks ago, when I tried three of his pinots, and indeed you would not mistake these wines for the classic refined and elegant character of the best Burgundian models. On the other hand, you would not necessarily assert that these are typically Californian either; the Loring wines I tasted revealed none of the over-ripe, cloying brown sugar, stridently spicy elements that mar so many pinot noirs from The Golden State.

“Fruit is everything,” said Loring, and “What happens in the vineyard determines the quality of the wine,” two sentiments with which I heartily agree. The result of this philosophy — and of treating all the grapes in similar manner, whatever their vineyard of origin — is pinot noirs that reek of deep, dark, unabashedly fruity qualities bolstered by a tremendous earthy, minerally character.

The Loring Durrell Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006, Sonoma Coast, offers an entrancing color where purple shades into magenta that fades out with a ghostly blue rim. The bouquet smolders with bright, vivid black cherry, black currant and plum scents permeated by roses and violets and a hint of face powder. The wine is substantial, solid, tense, ravishing with intense black fruit flavors deeply etched with vibrant acid; the earthy aspect comes in as strata of brambles and briers and moss with underlying minerality. The texture is like liquid satin, with satin’s sense of coolness and warmth. Drink now through 2012 or ‘14. The alcohol level is 14.3 percent. Excellent. About $45 to $55.

The black fruit on the Loring Russell Family Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006, Paso Robles, is spicier, more elevated, even brighter than on the previous wine. This one is tremendously lively and vivid and resonant, feeling almost sentient in the mouth, though after a few minutes in the glass, brooding aspects of earth and minerals begin to assert themselves. The wine remains exquisitely balanced, however, an edifice rolling on finely milled tannins and subtle, tasteful oak. Drink now through 2011 to ‘13. The alcohol level is 14.6 percent. Excellent. About $45 to $50.

Distinguished by the slightly macerated and roasted nature of its black currant and plum scents and flavors, the Loring Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinot Noir 2006, Santa Rita Hills, stops short of being overwhelmingly sensuous. While the bouquet is subtly floral, the intense black fruit flavors, hinting at spice cake, are wrapped around a core of crushed violets, lavender, licorice and minerals. The wine is robust and vigorous, and it regally drapes the tongue and palate. Of this trio of Loring pinot noirs, the Clos Pepe is the least earthy, though the finish brings in rooty, mossy, briery elements. Drink now through 2012 or ‘14. The alcohol level is 14.7 percent, but the wine does not feel “hot” or in the least over-ripe. Exceptional. About $45 to $55.

These label images, taken from loringwinecompany.com, which could seriously use some up-dating, are from previous vintages of the Loring Gary’s Vineyard pinot noirs.

The annual portfolio tasting mounted by Martin Scott Wines of Lake Success, New York, is so vast that participants must limit themselves in some rational manner and mount an agenda-based attack or else wander aimlessly, trying wines here and there. Held on several levels of the lobby of the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, the event offered almost 900 wines, of which I tasted, between noon and 5 p.m., Monday, about 120. Yes, that’s 24 wines per hour, one wine every two and a half minutes, and that’s counting taking time to chat with people and snatch cheese and bread from the snack tables and gulp it down.

I decided to limit myself mainly to pinot noir and chardonnay, because Martin Scott’s portfolio is rich in wines made from those noble grapes, being deep into Burgundy and small producers from California and Oregon. Most of these wines were from vintage 2005, a fine year for vineyard regions practically everywhere in the world, and, indeed, these wines did not disappoint. Interestingly, however, I found the examples from Burgundy bigger, more structured and more tannic, sometimes searingly so, than the models from California and Oregon; they also possess the potential for long aging and development, some perhaps not coming into their own until 2015 to 2018.

For example, I use phrases such as “Whoa, huge tannins!” or “Holy shit, staggering tannin” for wines like the Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru “Les Corbeaux 2005 from Domaine Heresztyn (”like drinking the vineyard”), about $88; and the Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru “Clos de la Marechale” 2005 from Domaine Jacques-Frederic Mugnier (”you can smell and taste the limestone”), about $80; and the Volnay 1er Cru “Les Chevrets” 2005 from Domaine Henri Boillot (”wonderful purity and intensity”), about $100. The point, though, is not that these wines, and others like them, are merely stout and tannic, but that they are deep and powerful and exhibit profound clarity and purpose. Some are more approachable now than others, of course, and I’ll get to those wines and the other Burgundies when I write out full reviews in a full days, either on this blog or over on KoeppelOnWine.

The California pinots that showed size and structure similar to their Burgundian counterparts for 2005 included the Ketcham Estate Pinot Noir 2005, Russian River Valley (”great but quite serious”), about $55; the Pisoni Vineyards and Winery Pinot Noir 2005, Santa Lucia Highlands (”what power!”); the Fiddlehead Cellars “Cuvee Seven Twenty Eight” Pinot Noir 2004 — note the year — Santa Rita Hills (”deep, intense, powerful”), about $43; and the Adrian Fog “Savoy Vineyard” Pinot Noir 2005, Anderson Valley (”spare, elegant, fills the glass, wow!”), about $83. No, friends, these are not cheap wines, mostly being made in limited quantities.

Generally, however, the pinots from California and Oregon conveyed a sense of earlier drinkability and younger balance and integration than the wines from Burgundy for 2005, and just for the record, let me add that among the loveliest, most elegant and classic Burgundian-style pinots I have encountered from California is the Inman Family Wines “Olivet Grange Vineyard” Pinot Noir 2005, Russian River Valley, about $45. Pinot noir lovers who value nuance and finesse over power and size should search for this wine relentlessly.

So, we’re leaving for La Guardia in a couple of hours, and we’ll we back in Memphis this evening. I just wanted to give readers a preview of what would be going on in my (our) world of wine for a while.

Jim Clendenen is undoubtedly a fine wine-maker, and he has made Au Bon Climat, founded in 1982 in Santa Barbara County, into a great source for powerful, eloquent and sometimes eccentric versions of chardonnay and pinot noir wines. Clendenen’s best work goes into small lots of vineyard-designated pinot noirs that have a way of satisfying and defying expectations simultaneously. In their rarity and cost and as bold expressions of a personal vision, they’re not for neophytes.

But I come today not to speak of such high-toned matters but to expound on Clendenen’s basic red wine, the Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir that carries a straight Santa Barbara County designation. The year in question is 2005. The price is generally about $25.

I was in my friendly neighborhood wine and liquor store last week and came across this wine. I picked up a bottle, and I said to the floor manager, “You know, I haven’t tried this in quite a while. I think I’ll get one of these.”

“Look at the label,” he said wisely.

“O.K, sure, what?”

“It’s not 100 percent pinot noir.”

I looked closely. Mon dieu! The wine contains 18 percent mondeuse grapes!

Let me backtrack for a moment.

Most grapes fit for making wine may be used alone (100 percent varietal, as they say) or blended with other appropriate grapes. The procedure depends a great deal on geography, climate and tradition. In Bordeaux, for example, the red wines are blended from various combinations of cabernet sauvignon grapes, merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot (malbec is little used nowadays). In the Loire Valley, however, cabernet franc makes its own wine, with no blending. You can find 100 percent cabernet sauvignon or merlot wines all over the world. Going back to the Loire, the white wines of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume are made from 100 percent sauvignon blanc grapes, but in Bordeaux, the white wine is always a blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon and sometimes muscadelle. The most blended of all blended wines is Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which tends to be primarily syrah, grenache and mourvedre but may contain amounts of up to 10 other grapes, In other parts of the world, however, you find syrah, grenache and mourvedre bottled on their own. You get the idea.

But of all the so-called “noble” red grapes, pinot noir has been sacred. Pinot noir, either in Burgundy, its homeland and apotheosis, or in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, several regions in California and increasingly in New Zealand, the grape is considered to possess such distinctive characteristics, such pure and intense inevitability (or, ideally, such inevitably purity and intensity) that it is never blended, unless, let me add, unscrupulously.

But here we have a widely-known and available pinot noir that includes 18 percent mondeuse grapes. Mondeuse is found in small quantities in the vineyards of France’s Savoie region, an alpine area just west of Switzerland. Most of the wine produced in Savoie is white, but the mondeuse grape is supposed to produce the best reds, which all accounts describe as spicy, peppery, deeply flavored, robust and rustic. So what’s it doing in pinot noir, which ought to be a model of suavity and subtlety and satiny texture?

To my palate, the mondeuse element in the Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir 2005 acts like coarse sandpaper to a fine piece of handmade wood furniture, roughening the surface and lending anomalous rusticity, turning — to extend the metaphor, which, given the chance, I will do nine times out of 10 — a sleek Bauhaus chaise into an Adirondack chair. Not that the wine isn’t pleasant and enjoyable. It’s dark, spicy, exotic, wild, earthy and bold, more like a combination of a zinfandel and a Cotes-du-Rhone than a pinot noir. If that’s what Jim Clendenen wants, who am I to object?

Except that I am, of course. It’s difficult to believe that Au Bon Climat’s basic pinot noir needed “pepping up” in 2005, an excellent year. Why not just let the grapes and the wine speak for themselves? What’s interesting is that nowhere on the Internet, not on the site of any wine retailer, not even on the winery’s website (AuBonClimat.com) is there a mention that the wine is not 100 percent pinot noir. So, readers, you’re saying, “Fer crissake, F.K., if nobody else cares, why do you? Yer making all this fuss about one damned wine!”

Well, readers, that’s just me, and on this blog, I’m the boss of you. It’s my substitute for being Boss of the World. In any case, every wine counts, every wine is an experience (not always good), an education (not always edifying) and an opportunity (not always to be missed). And it’s not that I’m against experimentation or wines inspired by individuality; such wines are often the treasures that we remember above all the other wines.

But pinot noir, my pinot? Leave it alone.

… transporting one miraculously but nowhere in evidence.” That’s what I say in one of the reviews on “A Case of New Releases” page that I just posted on KoeppelOnWine.com, expressing my dismay that some of my favorite pinot noirs from California are showing more oak in 2005 than they did in previous years, a sad device that interferes with the purity and intensity of the grape. The reviews cover a dozen pinots from the Golden State, mainly from Carneros and Monterey’s Santa Lucia Highlands. There’s a metaphor somewhere on the page about the resemblance of Jean Harlow’s slinky satin dresses to the irresistible texture of pinot noir wines. My favorite of the 12? Sure, I’ll go ahead and tell you. It’s the Donum Estate Pinot Noir 2004, Carneros, which at $60 is hardly cheap and at 800 cases is hardly in wide circulation, but if you’re a devotee of brilliantly made, classically balanced and proportioned pinot noir, it’s definitely Worth a Search.

And expensive, but we can dream, can’t we?

When I was in New York two weeks ago, I was invited to a tasting that debuted the splendid 2005 vintage for Faiveley, the venerable Burgundy house — founded in 1825 and still in the same family — with enviable holdings in Premier Cru and Grand Cru vineyards up and down the Cote d’Or. The selection of new wines was select indeed: Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru 2005; Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru ‘05; Nuits-Saint-George “Les Saint-Georges Premier Cru ‘05; Gevrey-Chamberton “Clos de Beze” Grand Cru ‘05; Chambolle-Musigny “La Combe d’Orveau” Premier Cru ‘05; and Corton “Clos de Cortons Faiveley” Grand Cru Monopole ‘05. I won’t reveal the prices or availability yet.

The event took place in the new and elegant Gordon Ramsey restaurant in the London hotel and featured exquisite hors d’oeuvres and a horde of well-dressed people clamoring for, jostling for and even demanding sips of wine. Well, they were great sips.

We wet our whistles with a glass of Faiveley’s white Mercurey “Clos Rochette” Monopole 2004 — “monopole” means a rare instance in Burgundy when a house owns an entire vineyard — a tremendously clean and fresh chardonnay, very earthy and bracingly minerally, like drinking liquid limestone electrified by vibrant acid, with delicious roasted lemon and lemon curd flavors nestled in a texture that was taut yet almost talc-like. A lovely wine that costs about $24 a bottle. While you’re saving your pennies for the following wines or trying to float a loan, you would be happy knowing you had scored a coup with this bargain. 600 cases imported. (The importer is Wilson-Daniels in Napa Ca.)
OK, here are six Big Guns.

*Domaine Faiveley Chablis “Les Clos” Grand Cru 2005. 100% chardonnay. Exquisite and serious, the epitome of a Grand Cru Chablis in its unerring precision and boundless expansiveness. The acid cuts like a knife honed on the wine’s own limestone and quartz outcroppings, yet the texture takes the opposite approach toward creamy lushness that knows exactly when to exert its spareness and elegance. Roasted lemon and lemon curd flavors are infused with orange and lime peel, dried baking spice and a profound earthy element, all of these qualities drawn out through a long, sleek finish. One of the best Chablis I have ever tasted. Exceptional. About $88. 150 six-bottle cases imported.

*Domaine Faiveley Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2005. 100% chardonnay. A brilliant wine, amazingly complex, with awe-inspiring detail and dimension. The bouquet offers toasted hazelnuts, spiced and roasted lemon, jasmine and honeysuckle, limestone and a whiff of grapefruit. The size and weight are spectacular, yet the wine never feels lead-footed or obvious, possessing inherent limpidity, an elevating crispness and acidity. The wine is, however, very dry, very earthy, almost tannic. Try from 2010 to 2015 or ‘18. Exceptional. About — one blushes — $273 a bottle, of which 50 six-bottle cases were imported.

*Domaine Faiveley Nuits-Saint-Georges “Les Saint-Georges” Premier Cru 2005. 100% pinot noir. This delivers penetrating aromas of crushed raspberry, black cherry and cranberry permeated by exotic spice, potpourri and clean, damp earth. I mean, it’s all sandalwood and lavender, violets and plum dust, finely-milled tannins (and lots of ‘em), polished oak and minerals. It would be almost pretty if it weren’t so brooding. Try from 2010 or ‘12 to 2015 or ‘16. Or tonight with a grilled veal chop, plenty of rosemary. Excellent. About $146, with 30 six-bottle cases imported to the United States.

*Domaine Faiveley Gevrey-Chambertin “Clos de Beze” Grand Cru 2005. 100% pinot noir. The seductive bouquet of ripe and dried black cherry, raspberry and currant is buoyed by violets and lavender and anchored in an earthy character that’s almost mossy and musky (meaning that this is good and desirable). It’s very dry and large-framed in the mouth, with deep foundations of earth and minerals, new leather, dense oak and slightly austere tannins. Try from 2010 or ‘12 to 2015 to ‘18. Excellent, and a pinot noir of immense character and dignity. About — giving one pause — $350 a bottle, of which 130 six-bottle cases were imported.

*Domaine Faiveley Chambolle-Musigny “La Combes d’Orveau” Premier Cru 2005. 100% pinot noir. Have mercy, this wine is huge! Not just huge but reticent, not just reticent but brooding, without, thank goodness lapsing into truculence, being saved by glimmers of deep, dark black fruit flavors, exotic spice and a mineral quality that’s almost scintillating. Obviously made for the long-haul, this should be given from 2010 or ‘14 through 2015 to ‘20. Excellent. About $176 a bottle, of which 30 six-bottle cases were imported.

*Domaine Faively Corton “Clos des Cortons Faiveley” Grand Cru Monopole 2005. 100% pinot noir. My first notes are “tremendous — HUGE — god, what a nose!” I guess that sort of tells you everything you need to know, except that for a wine of such amazing heft and substance and power, it remains remarkably light on its feet, with a delicacy of dried and fresh roses and violets, like lace on a midnight black velvet dress, and intense and concentrated black fruit scents and flavors. The tannins, though, are broad, scrunchy, austere. A monument that requires some polishing from 2010 or ‘12 to 2015 or ‘18. Excellent. About $195 a bottle, of which 200 six-bottle cases were imported.

So, why mention these wines except that, as with Everest, they’re there?

Well, that’s one reason, of course. The other is to allow readers who, like myself, mainly concern themselves with everyday drinking wines, the opportunity to expand their awareness of the possibilities of wine even vicariously, the way we look at expensive watches or automobiles or rare books. The Faiveley wines reviewed here, rare and costly, will end up on the wine lists of high-ticket restaurants and in the cellars of a few collectors. So be it. They still represent the epitome of what the world’s ancient heritage of wine-making — and Burgundy’s — is all about: authenticity, integrity, eloquence.
Faiveley does offer far less expensive wines than these Premier and Grand Cru wines, which represent a fraction of the house’s production. In addition to the Mercurey Clos Rochette Monopole 2004 mentioned above, look for the white Faiveley Montagny “Domaine de la Croix Jacquelet” 2004, about $21, the red Mercurey “Domaine de la Croix Jacquelet” 2004, about $21, and, always a reliable label, Faiveley’s appealing “Georges Faiveley” Bourgogne Chardonnay 2004, about $17.

All right, I should have been more clear about my Proustian moment raking and bagging old leaves in the backyard last weekend that led to an explication of the “great Burgundy smells like shit” simile. Yes, great red Burgundy, made from pinot noir grapes, smells deeply earthy, loamy and mossy, with a touch of fleshy and sometimes slightly decayed and “barnyardy” elements (that’s the shit part), nobly clean and fresh, but it also smells (or should or may smell) of pure smoky black cherry and currant fruit (sometimes cranberry), of cloves and allspice, of minerals, and (subtly, one hopes) of spicy oak. There, are you happy now?

I didn’t say that. It was Anthony Hanson in the first edition of his book “Burgundy,” published in 1982 in the old Faber & Faber series about wine regions. Hanson was trying to get at the essence of a particular quality about red Burgundy wines, made from pinot noir grapes, that other writers tiptoed around with such terms as “earth,” “barnyard,” “beet-root,” “old saddle” or, with Gallic flair (attributed to the great winemaker Jacques Seysses of Domaine Dujac), “your mistress’s armpit.” “Not always, of course,” Hanson continues, “but frequently there is a smell of decaying matter, vegetable or animal, about them.”

Quite an uproar ensued about Hanson’s forthright statement — “sacre bleu!” — and many of his critics said that he was wrong. In fact, researchers determined that some portion of ancient cellars in Burgundy were rife with brettanomyces, a versatile, resilient and highly undesirable form of yeast that thrives in old, dirty barrels and other cellar equipment difficult to clean and that produces spoilage in wine that to some degree smells like the qualities mentioned above but in a more or less unpleasant manner. More uproar — “zut alors!” — there goes the whole romance and mystery of Burgundy, flying out the window with a scientific and pejorative explanation; the essence of Burgundy is the result of a flaw!

The truth surely lies smack in the middle of those brutal assessments. Great Burgundy doesn’t exactly smell like shit; earthy, yes, “barnyardy,” of course, “your mistress’s armpit” (but apparently not one’s wife’s armpit), I dunno, but the unspoken factor in this issue so far is that all of these elements must be clean, scintillating, provocative, touching both a depth of minerality and an elevation of freshness with a hint, excusez-moi, un soupçon, of autumnal dissolution and death.

So, anyway, these important matters were brought to mind because Sunday was a beautiful day in Memphis, a bit chilly in the shade, warm enough in the sun to require the divesting of sweaters, and featuring like a banner on high, a clear, brilliantly blue sky. The day was also almost windless, and we had about half an acre of last season’s fallen leaves to rake, blow, bag and get out to the street, an activity that took most of the day.

Now we have five dogs, and while they are often corralled in their own yards, they sometimes have the free run of the big backyard. To speak as frankly as Anthony Hanson, they shit. And the shit gets rained on and dissolves, gets dried by the sun, gets transmuted by time and the elements. It’s all profoundly philosophical.

And, while working in the backyard, raking, stooping, lifting, filling bags, occasionally came to my nostrils an earthy, organic, slightly decayed yet not unpleasant scent that reminded me of something. This phenomenon occurred often enough that I had to stop and think about it, probing my sense memory, and then it struck me: I was smelling something that had to do with red wine, something evoked by the combination of old leaves, some of them dry and some a little damp, scrapings of earth and the funky yet clean scent of dessicated dog shit. Voila! Burgundy!

The image of the bottle of old Burgundy is from monmillesime.com.