I have sent my tongue along the Hudson
River. I've sent it to Long Island – where by the way the best
wines in the Empire State might come from - but that's just my opinon
… and even more scary might be the fact that these pretty
convinving potations were made from, errr from … I almost not dare to
type it: Mmm ... Merlot! Whatever, today I am glad to send my tongue to the Finger
Lakes betweeen Syracuse, Buffalo, the outback of north Pennsylvania
and mighty Lake Ontario. Of course it is not the first time I let my
tongue venture in this area. I had a few fairly good Rieslings, some
solid Chardonnay, one or two interesting over-peppery Cabernet Sauvignons
and wines from unmentioned varietals I actually don't want to try all
too often. Anyway, but I've never had a fairly good Pinot Noir,
although quite a lot of producers offer wines made from this finest
of the finest. Most Pinots I had where easy-drinking fruit-driven at best,
quite often displeasingly sugary and unfortunately without exception rather
thin representatives of their kind. Today I'll have a Pinot Noir from
Chateau LaFayette Reneau from the southeastern slopes of Lake Seneca.
Lafayette Reneau was established in 1985 by Dick and Betty Reno. Like
so many other winelovers all over the world they decided to go one
step further. Not just collecting and drinking. They wanted more. Since then, their main
focus lies on wines made from Riesling and Chardonnay from gravely
loam soils. Today's Pinot originated from the same gravely loam. After harvest and fermentation it was aged for 12 months in new and used
French, Hungarian and American oak barrels then racked together in a
tank as well as filtered and stabilized. So, let's give it a try ...
The colour of the Chateau LaFayette Reneau made a
slightly sluggishly-bored dark-ruby red impression to me. Could have looked a bit more vital. The nose
was dominated by blood orange, blood orange peel, cucumber, perhaps some bright cherries, surely a bit too
kitsch'y strawberries, some hay and straightforward savoury. On the second day
everything seemed a bit more precise and clean cut, but still mostly driven by
lean and not too cool appearing fruit and unfortunately not so much
else. On the palate the first hours, and actually the entire first
day, this Finger Lakes Pinot appeared quite sweet and very fruitful.
Luckily it was overall lean (not thin), cooler than the nose tried to predict and showed some decent life thanks to
a solid infusion of acid. Apart all of that the fruitful flavours seemed
pretty much the same like the nasal ones. I should not forget to mention the rather shy
herbal characteristics and a distinct flavour of caramel-toffee. However, these ones were really shy. I mean the herbs. The toffee was very much present. Apart of this last sensation no trace of the partly new oak. Which was fine to me. The
tannins were a bit too sleepy for my understanding. On the second day
the sweetness lost enough impact and the fruit lost a bit of its over
pacing drive to leave a mostly balanced, easy-drinking final
impression on my admittedly outrageously discerning tounge. Altogether a
nice, easy, lean and very solid so-lala*** Pinot … but unfortunately not more.
However still by far the most pleasing Pinot from New York I had ... so far!
Prossima volta I will send my lingua
esigente to bellissima Piemonte to have a rather particolari kind of
Pinot Nero. A presto! Ciao tutti!
No comments:
Post a Comment