Sat 14 Jun 2008
Three of Brian Loring’s 14 Pinot Noirs
Posted by Fredric Koeppel under Pinot noir , California , Best Wines[3] Comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
2005, Russian River Valley, about $45. Pinot noir lovers who value nuance and finesse over power and size should search for this wine relentlessly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.