Quickie: Vavasour Pinot Noir 2003

Last night I decided to break out of my Italian wine routine.  I opened a bottle I'd bought some months ago, on the sale rack of First Avenue Vintners, across the street.  (The store is small but has fairly well-chosen wines -- and no scores screaming at me from shelf talkers.  I appreciate that and the knowledgeable service.  Prices are high, though.)

I digress. 

Things didn't start well.  For some reason, I thought this wine was from Oregon.  Imagine the spew of curses that issued from my mouth when, corkscrew deployed, I encountered a Stelvin closure.  New Zealand.

According to TizWine, this Vavasour PN

"was hand harvested from low yielding Awatere Valley vineyards. This wine is a deep garnet colour showing intense black cherry notes on the nose. The richly structured palate exhibits virrant cherry, plum and mushroom flavours and a soft tannin finish."

To me it tasted off, unhealthy, which was something I could not blame on a cork, with also a sort of cough-syrupy industrial taste.  A rottenish off scent too.  14.5% alcohol.  A potent brand of cough medicine.

Somewhat diffidently I drank a couple of glasses with my simple supper, unwilling to pour it down the sink because the night before I'd dumped some vile Jumilla a dinner guest had brought us.  Anyway, there isn't  much wine in the house and I await the Le Fonti delivery.

As I reflect on the topic of manipulated, industrial-tasting wines, I have to say that this may be the first NZ wine I've had which has been similarly afflicted. 

I have had only one or two Italian wines that struck my mouth so crudely.  (And those were really shitty Apulian bulk wines I've tried at tastings.)  In a month of drinking mostly house wines all over Italy, I can tell you that none of them was off or unpleasant.  Some were livelier and better made than others, of course, but they shared a certain, implied set of assumptions of reasonable price/quality.  Anyway, the ristoratori would turn off their regular customers if they served something deeply cheap and inferior.

Nor have I had any from Long Island; whatever the shortcomings of that wine region, its winemakers are conscientious in their pursuit of honest, clean vino. 

Maybe the more important question is: Why do they insist on making Pinot Noir when it's so obviously crappy?

This is about the umpteenth PN I've had, from various regions, which was so terrible, so un-Pinot Noir, that I wonder why the producers insist on making the stuff.  I realize that every PN need not taste like a Burgundy.  But even a mediocre Burgundy presents such a radically different and more distinctive "organoleptic" profile, as the Italians call it, that wines like this Vavasour seem like a travesty of the noble grape's potentiality. Why not stick with something easier if the terroir and/or winemaking isn't up to snuff?

Well, I guess you can get anyone to shill for you.  At least there wasn't some tricked-up, inflated score pinned to the Vavasour on the TizWine site.

Comments

[Fredric Koeppel]

calm down, old boy. First, there's not a thing wrong with screw-caps. I wish more wines were finished that way. saves the heartbreak of the corked wine.
Second, a "mediocre Burgundy" is just another mediocre wine. (No, really, I know what you mean.) Third: You are correct that way too many pinor noir wines are manipulated, man-handled and keel-hauled into inappropriate size, texture, alcohol and wood. Not good for the grape; v. sad. You onbviously got hold of a stinker in more ways than one.
SO (fourth) I'll name a case (as it were) of the best pinot noirs I have had this year, eliminating "New World" styles that I think would insult your palate. Some of these are expensive; excellent and better pinot noir wines are never cheap. Perhaps these will whet your appetite for pinot if you're on a splurge.
1. A & P. de Villaine Mercurey "Les Montots" 2004, Cote Chalonnaise. $35.
2. Belle Glos P.N. 2003, Sonoma Coast. $27.
3. Catherine et Claude Marechal Bourgogne "Cuvee Gravel" 2002. $16-$20.
4. Chalone Vineyard Estate P.N. 2004. Monterey. $32.
5. Clos du Val P.N. 2004, Carneros. $24.
6. Domaine Francois Legros Morey-Saint-Denis "Clos Sorbe" 2002. $45.
7. Domaine Serene Evanstad Reserve P.N. 2002, Willamette Valley. $48.
8. Domaine Vincent Girardin Beaune Premier Cru "Clos des Vignes Franches" 2003. $45.
9. Le Cadeau P.N. 2003. Willamette Valley. $40.
10. Morgan Rosella's Vineyard P.N. 2004, Santa Lucia Highland. $45.
11. Nicolas Potel Beaune Premier Cru "Clos des Vignes Franches" 2003. $39-$49.
12. Ortman Family Vineyard P.N. 2002, Willamette Valley. $25.
Good luck and enjoy.

[Terry Hughes]

Gee, I wondered why you were so long on my site! You're a guest author now, from the looks of it.(Too much time on my hands, as you can see. Avoiding my real work.)

I don't mind the Stelvin closure, really -- I just was pissed that I wasn't too attentive. I was dreading little shards of aluminium in the wine. Might have improved it.

Thanks for the tips, though they are truly splurge wines for me just now. I'm not quite at the wine-in-a-box stage but approaching it. (Somebody invite me to a degustation, and soon!)

Is there a particular favorite of yours in the mix?

[Fredric Koeppel]

gosh, i thought you might be back at school this week.
If you could try ONE of these, go for the Villaine Mercurey Les Montots 04. I mean this cuts across the palate with a line of acid the way you find in few wines today, plus it has a deep earthy minerally briary and brambly quality that tastes like the vineyard itself, while never neglesting fruit. Villaine is also co-owner of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti; he knows what he's doing. and the wines are organic (in case that matters). but this is the real stuff.

[Terry Hughes]

Thanks, sounds like my kind of wine.

See you soon...exactly when?

[Fredric Koeppel]

we get in on sat sept 9. LL leaves friday morning the 15th, i leave the next morning. the burgundy tasting im going to is thursday, noon until 6!

[Terry Hughes]

Lucky you. This is when I hate being chained to a school calendar.

[stuart]

If you dig a bit there are some great PN's at not to crazy prices. Domaine Marc Morey Chassagne-Montrachet was a great example.