Drinking the 2004 Le Cadeau Cote Est Pinot Noir
It’s been a while since I purchased one each of the Le Cadeau Pinot Noir releases from the 2004 vintage. Here’s a quick refresher for you:
- Rocheux - Harry Peterson-Nedry and Mike Eyres made this wine for Le Cadeau; you can read my review here.
- Diversité - Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill made this release; you can my review of this wine here.
- Cote Est - Produced using fruit from a cooler part of the vineyard, this wine had been sitting in my wine fridge since January 2007; Josh Bergstrom had the honor of making this wine.
I also drank the 2003 Le Cadeau release a while back, which was the second vintage from this winery. All of these wines have been superlative, and so far I think the Rocheux is my favorite of the Le Cadeau wines I have tried.
The 2004 Cote Est is over 14% alcohol, but under 15%, so it’s in a good range in my opinion. The 2005 vintage added some Dijon 114 and 115 berries into the mix, so I will be curious to taste the 2005 and compare it to this 2004. I brought my 2004 Cote Est to Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle, the restaurant that is quickly becoming my preferred destination for a good Pinot Noir. I had the wood-fired sturgeon, which was insanely good with this wine.
So, what did I think of the Cote Est? Here are my notes; we did not decant this wine, but rather tasted some first, saw that it was ready to drink, and left the bottle open as we consumed the wine over 90 minutes.
- Aroma: Ripe and rich at first, with a pleasing barnyard note; opened up into a deeply rewarding cherry blossom, plum, and chocolate bouquet.
- Flavor: Complex notes of black cherry, black plum, black currant, coffee, baking spice, black pepper, and secondary notes of raspberry and dark chocolate. Extremely sensual flavor profile, very smooth with integrated tannins and acid. Very complex and deep wine.
- General impression: Delicious wine, comparable to many of the best 2004 Pinot Noirs from Oregon; well worth seeking out!
As these notes suggest, the Cote Est is probably my favorite of the three 2004 Le Cadeau Pinot Noir offerings. I like the other wines quite a lot as well, of course, but there is something more rich and complex (to my palate, anyway) and even more appealing about the Cote Est. My wife really enjoyed this wine too, saying that it complemented her king salmon nicely and that it was best at the end of the evening after 90 minutes of exposure to air.
So, another great release from the Mortimers at Le Cadeau. I look forward to the 2005, which I still need to buy!