huevos con vino

After dinner during a recent evening, I spent a few hours at an old friend’s house where we caught up a bit and split a bottle of wine.  As always, it was a tricky decision to choose just one wine for the night.  His cellar is expanding and while his focus remains on Cabernet Sauvignon, we both realized we needed something that would be better with just mild cheese and crackers since we already ate dinner.  So, after the customary perusal process, we settled on 1 of my friend’s 2 bottles of 2003 Cristom Louise Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Cristom is a well-established winery situated in the Eola Hills region of Oregon wine country, a site that yields terrific grapes and a Salem address for the winery itself.  At Cristom, they specialize in Pinot Noir and have 8 different bottlings to choose from.  In addition, they produce Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Viognier, and a new Syrah (2003 was the first vintage).  They have received some notice from both the Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate, and their wine prices range from $19 for the Pinot Gris to $25 for the Chardonnay and Syrah all the way up to $46 for their top Pinot Noirs.

A quick review of my master wine spreadsheet confirms that I had never tried a Cristom until now.  The Louise is one of the most expensive and limited Pinot Noirs from Cristom, and its name is not to be confused with Domaine Drouhin Louise, which should not be confused with Domaine Drouhin Laurène either.  My friends gave me heart palpitations when they told me they had seen Domaine Drouhin Louise for sale locally, but it turned out to be Laurène instead.

The Cristom Louise is made in a traditional manner that reflects the Burgundian approach of Steve Doerner, winemaker at Cristom.  The grapes are divided into a 30/70 split of whole clusters (30%) and “gently” destemmed grapes (70%), an interesting approach given that many winemakers opt to destem all or none of their grapes as stems can increase the acidity and tannins in the resulting wine.  The Cristom Web site adds this context for the wine:

“This is the oldest of our estate Pinot Noir vineyards that we began planting in 1993 to new clones and at high density. It is a selection of our favorite barrels from the vineyard. The vineyard now consists of Dijon clones 113,114,115 and 777 along with the Pommard clone all planted at 2300 vines to the acre. The site has a southeast slope and is comprised primarily of Ritner soil which is volcanic in origin.”

I would also add that this wine is 14.5% alcohol, which is fairly high for a Pinot Noir but not excessive by any means.  For more details on the Cristom Louise, including the source for that quote, refer to the Cristom winery Web site and their specific description of the wine.  One last point on the Cristom Pinot Noirs: They only made 583 cases of Louise, meaning this wine is about as limited as any of the Cristom Pinot Noirs (production ranges from 581 cases to 3,799 cases depending on the wine).

Now, normally when I taste a wine, I have a fairly clean palate, so to speak.  However, I believe I compromised my ability to taste the nuances of this wine because I had some fairly spicy salsa an hour beforehand.  I mention this fact to explain why my tasting notes are focused on aroma more than flavor; I don’t feel I can do this wine justice from this particular tasting and I hope to try it again someday when I have not eaten a bunch of habanero salsa with dinner.

• Aroma: Evolved over a couple of hours, from earth and cherry to coffee and vanilla and then back to an almost cherry cola bouquet.  Quite lovely overall.
• Flavor: Fairly soft tannins and potentially strong acidity, but this adicity was largely due to a conflict with the salsa I ate beforehand; my wife and my two friends did not think the acidity was all that strong.  In fact, they all loved the flavor and we agreed on the black cherry, black plum, and red currant flavors for sure.  Other subtle flavors permeate this wine, but the salsa stopped me from detecting them with any certainty.
• General impression: Clearly a very good wine that needs at least 1-2 hours of decanting before you take the plunge.  I’d say it’s worth $45/bottle, although at $486/case it’s not necessarily an everyday wine.

Clearly I need to taste this wine again someday.  I feel this wine will age for at least 3-5 years, although without too much tannic activity I wonder whether the wine will age well beyond that.  The winemaker notes that Louise has “some aging potential,” but I am unclear just how much age is right for this wine.  If you do pick up a bottle, hide it until 2010 and then give it a try.  That’s my professional advice…and that’s coming from someone who eats salsa before tasting Pinot Noir.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 11:57 am and is filed under wine review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.