huevos con vino

I have been writing about Le Cadeau a lot lately.  First the offer letter, now this: My review of the 2004 Diversité Pinot Noir.

I felt that I needed a suitable wine for the venue and occasion; dinner at Ray’s Boathouse with friends certainly calls for something a bit grand.  I have had my eye on my 2 remaining Le Cadeau 2004 Pinots for a while, and I decided to go for the Diversité due to its feminine appeal and supple textures.  At least, that’s what I have been told about this wine.  I like to look at the wines I own in CellarTracker and see what others have to say.  This wine seemed like a good choice as a seafood and meat complement.

Le Cadeau focus exclusively on Pinot Noir, with an annual case production approaching 1,000, although they aren’t that large yet.  In fact, they are still small enough to qualify for the 2007 Portland Indie Wine Festival.  That’s Portland, Oregon, for all you East Coasters.  Tom Mortimer himself will be at this festival, pouring a selection of 2004 and 2005 wines (no 2005 Rocheux, but the rest of those two vintages will be represented).  I can’t make it to this festival, so I will just have to settle for the bottle of 2004 Diversité in my wine fridge.

Among the 3 Pinot Noirs that Le Cadeau makes, Diversité features the widest blend of clones.  Six clones are represented in the 2004 Diversité, including 15% Mariafeld clone in the blend.  The Mariafeld clone is very interesting and rarely seen in US-produced Pinot Noir.  This botrytis-resistant, bunch-rot-resistant clone comes from Switzerland, originally, and is an excellent blending grape if any of the previous links are to be trusted.  Pommard and 4 Dijon clones round out the balance of the blend, which clocks in at 14.1% alcohol.  And at 164 cases, this wine is scarce to be sure.

Back to the dining experience.  For dinner, I had a Maytag blue cheese and butter lettuce salad, followed by osso buco in a cassis sauce.  Now that was good, and it turned out to be a great pairing with this wine!  Here are my notes:

• Aroma: A mouth-watering array of sour red cherry and ripe red plum; after about 90 minutes of decanting, there is a sweet aroma sort of like fresh baked bread or creme brulee.  Very enticing.
• Flavor: At first, very strong acidic and tannic profile; clearly this wine can be aged for several years.  After about 60-90 minutes of decanting, the flavor settles into a well balanced groove of sweet raspberry jam with fresh black currants and blue huckleberries.  The sweetness really emerges over time, becoming almost as potent as a tawny port but with far more wine-like character.  I think this tawny essence comes from the lovely burnt caramel flavor that is exposed after significant decanting.
• General impression: Quite a nice wine that will only get better after a year or two in the cellar.  Perhaps the caramel sweetness that shows through after 1-2 hours is a little strong, but the flavor profile is terrific overall.  I would definitely drink this wine again.

The other folks at dinner loved this wine as much as I did.  Looks like another winner for Le Cadeau!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 8:02 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.