Papapietro Perry Pinot Noir 2004 Wednesday, Jan 31 2007
Tasting Notes and USA and Variety and Red and pinot noir
This wine is actually from fruit grown on the Sonoma Coast of California which is a fairly obscure area that essentially covers coastal areas on either side of San Francisco. It tends to be the coolest of the Californian Pinot AVA’s (regions). We had it after a rather disappointing wine reviewed a week ago. This was great! It commences with a very enticing nose of cherry and oaky spice. On the palate it had lovely cherry with a bit of cinamon spice and a velvet texture that lasted for quite some time. I think I spotted a little plum and maybe a bit of a cola flavour, probably from high quality oak. Almost creamy with a cherry finish.
Tasted : jan07
Alcohol : 13.5%
Price : $70
Closure : Cork
Drink : 2007 - 2010
Source : Wine Shop
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I’ll come right out with it and say that I really do like Central Otago pinot noir. It is not Burgundy and I don’t think it needs to be either. It has a terroir of it’s own. It nearly always smells and tastes of the place in which it was grown, and although it’s often about as subtle as the front row of the All Blacks, it’s still tastes like pinot noir to me. 
I am supposed to tasting 2004 Coonawarra but this has been tossing and turning and squeeking away at me from it’s little white foam box for a while now. I thought I heard it humming ‘Copperhead Road’ but that may just be a case of mistaken identity. 
This is my second tasting of this particular wine and I like it very much. It might catch a few people by suprise who have been used to the Estate Chardonnays of yore…It is now ‘out with the melons and cream’ and ‘in with the citrus, mineral and flint’. This sees only 8% new oak. 
A great dinner with friends and this wine was served blind along with 3 others from 1996. The others were later revealed to be Mt. Mary, Coldstream Hills Reserve and Diamond Valley White label. Most were past their peak but this was still pretty good. It had cherry flavours, a little oaky/mocha and some pongy characters on the nose. The palate showed a little aged character but the fruit underneath was sound and it was a great accompaniment with the food. When the wine was revealed I remember buying it in 1997 after it had won a lot of great accolades. As I recall it had a mixture of clones, mostly the “D- clones” and a lot of american oak. Great to see it still sound but I would not want to keep it for too much longer.
A dinner with friends to look at Pinot Noir. We had three brackets, 2002, 1999 and 1996. The wines were served blind in brackets where the only thing in common was the year. The young wines all looked good and since I have reviewed them before I will choose the picks from the older brackets. This wine was alongside Main Ridge Estate Half Acre and a Vosne Romanee from Jacques Cacheux. We were told that a Burgundy was in the bracket and I was pretty confident it was this wine. It had a complex nose that showed more plum than cherry, a bit of spice and quite a dose of fennel/anise. The palate had great power and weight with a texture reflecting, from my experience, 1999 as a vintage in burgundy. The plum and fennel mixed really well and it was an excellent accompaniment to the splendid duck pie prepared by our chef host. When revealed I recalled a 2000 reviewed 
This is the last, but not least, of three excellent pinots reviewed this evening. I have always liked Bannockburn but never seem to get round to buying the wines. I drink them at restaurants quite often but somehow never manage to get them into the cellar. Hmmm. Must fix that. 
The last few vintages of Shelmerdine pinot have all been quite excellent, so it was not without a degree of an….ticipation that I snapped the top off the 2005 vintage. Here is a winery that over delivers on quality for the price. This vintage is no exception.
I was hugely impressed with the 
This makes for a nice change of diet. The fruit comes from the Rocky Road vineyard, hence the name. It says on the back label - ‘For those who would like to see the wine develop further, we have opted for a cork closure. Medium term cellaring recommended.’ I’ll stay away from commenting further on that one. 
A few months back Lincoln described me as a Gamayist and recently Max Allen reckons I have a Lloydian obsession with Gamay. It must be time for me to try another. Wendy and I always take 2 days off to attend the Australian Open Tennis quarter finals. This year we decided to have dinner in town between the day and night session. A great meal at a winebar that alas has no view so although they had 2001 Rousseau we decided to try a Beaujolais. As usual it was one of the best value wines on a very extensive list. We paid $55 and it was very good. The colour was the usual intense red with hint of deeper crimson. The nose was rich with violets with a summer pudding like berry mix. The palate was exactly as suggested by the nose but had lovely pinot like velvety texture and waves of nice red berry fruits. Nice length and a lovely wine that went so well with the food.
Wendy and I finished 2 days holiday in town with a sticky desert. Syracuse have a winelist that is quite famous and we felt like sharing a glass of something sticky and this was suggested by the waiter. It comes from the tiny volcanic Sicilian island of Pantelleria. The island is famous for the traditional sweet wines produced from Zibibbo grapes. I was told it had an apricot like luscious flavour akin to that in a botrytis wine. Although I thought it was not that apricot like, it was very good. The flavours were ripe and big with peach and a hint of apricot and a bit of a grassy note. The residual sugar was perfectly balanced by the fruit power and alcohol! A perfect match with our desert and well suggested.
One of our Dear Readers (Andrew J I do believe) asked what I thought of this wine so I touched up Elderton for a taster and they came to the party pretty quickly. Thank you very much Elderton. Much appreciated! I like requests. Feel free to phone in if you have any more. 1800 WINORAMA. Just ask for Lincoln…
I walked back into my office today after an absence of three days to find about forty wines piled up. Don’t think for a minute that I am complaining (or being a wanker..well I am a bit but anyway..). I love being able to taste a huge range of wines at no (financial) cost but I don’t think I can ever find time to review them all properly. A Winorama review takes a bit of time what with all the formatting and pictures and all this rubbish that I like to write as a lead in. So please bear this in mind when you read the reviews. Not everything gets reviewed. ‘Some girls do. Some girls won’t. Some girls need a lot of lovin’ and some girls don’t.’ The criteria is based on a number of factors including fashionabilty, quality, rarity, availability, quirkiness, high interest, favouritism, regionality or even just plain awfulness (although very rarely) etc etc. Anyway a box of Shelmerdine arrived today and I was all over it like the proverbial Winorama fat kid on a chocolate cake. I like Shelmerdine and just looking at the ’super petrol’ colour of this wine I can see I am in for a Yarra Euro Special (or YES as it is known in the trade)….
This is a sangiovese and grenache blend from the Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley and Riverland. I must admit that I am a bit of a rose man. I much prefer to drink this sort of thing over the dreaded pinot gris/grigio if I am looking for an uncomplicated food style…and while I have your attention I will also add that I don’t mind giving a rose high points. It think it is a wine where function is more important than form. I have tasted quite a few roses over the last couple of weeks and this one is worth writing about. 
The winery is the new project of Dan and Sarah-Kate Dineen, formerly of Tower Estate and Tempus Two respectively. They decided to leave the Hunter Valley and start up in New Zealand as they obviously prefer more challenging wine regions…. I also have a 2004 Central Otago pinot to investigate. Love the packaging.
I bought a bottle of this on holidays from one of those ghastly bottle shops where there is really nothing interesting to drink. This looked like the pick of the bunch (and one of the most expensive) and so it was. A very good holiday white. This bottle is from a sample and I am going to open up a bunch of wines tonight, have a small taste, write the good ones up, and unload near full bottles at parties tomorrow. Like a big Australia Day bunny but with wine instead of eggs.. Oh this is a blend of sauvignon, semillon and chardonnay. 
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