Drinking the 2005 Green Truck Cellars Pinot Noir
Kent Fortner is a really approachable person. When I first corresponded with him, I was simply signing up for his mailing list. But I had read his blog entry on Burgundian cooperage, which I found fascinating, and he replied with a personal note of gratitude for finding his site and his winery! Nice start.
Kent’s Green Truck Cellars winery is quickly becoming well known. I have seen his wine for sale on at least one restaurant list so far, although more are sure to follow. Kent focuses on Pinot Noir, which I think is cool. I really like the idea of a winery focusing on a specific varietal, especially at the start of the winery’s career, so to speak. I ordered 6 bottles of the 2005 edition, which was the 5th vintage from Kent and Green Truck Cellars. He boldly predicts the 2005 will be “showing perfectly on Dec 25, 2007,” so today (October 1, 2007) seemed like a good time to open up a bottle of the 2005. Only 600 cases were made and Kent sold out briskly, so I’m happy to have this opportunity!
The 2005 was aged in an interesting combination of 80% French oak barrels and 20% Hungarian oak barrels, 30% of which were new. I assume, then, that 6% of the barrels used to make this wine were made of new oak. It’s a good thing I did the math before I began drinking; this wine clocks in at 13.9% alcohol, which isn’t terribly high but it’s no lightweight. Because of the wine’s relatively youthful status, I decided to decant this wine for about 1-2 hours first. It’s a good thing, too: It took at least 90 minutes for this wine to relax and open up a little. Even then, things were a little tight; perhaps now is a bad time to drink a 2005 Pinot Noir. Bah, it’s never a bad time!
Here are my notes:
- Aroma: Straight from the bottle, this wine means business. Lots of dusty tannin and bright strawberry, red cherry, and black plum aroma plus some alcohol heat/acid that will clearly dissipate quickly; potent, rich, heady aromas dominate up front with some black pepper and smoked meat in there too. After nearly 2 hours, the aroma is characterized by A classic French-style Pinot Noir bouquet overall.
- Flavor: Decanting is definitely required for a wine this young and full-bodied. It takes a good 90 minutes for the real flavor of this wine to show through, and it’s worth the wait. Lush red and black berries, velvet mouthfeel, delayed tannic and acidic backbone…this wine is built right. Or should I say, built Ford tough? Probably not. But it’s good.
- General impression: A nice wine! Clearly this Green Truck has a lot of miles ahead of it.
So, the big question: Will I buy more of this wine? I think so, yeah. I like the style of Pinot Noir that Kent expresses in this wine: restrained, with deeper sour cherry flavors rather than super-saturated black cherry. But I also like the fact that this wine requires patience, time, and probably at least a few more years in the cellar…although I can see Kent’s point about 12/25/07 as a target drinking date. Enjoy!