This has become a Briscoe staple. And, unfortunately, sometimes staples go overlooked. This shouldn’t be the case: if there’s something that’s taken up permanent residence in the cellar (or closet as it were at the moment, thank you COVID for taking away my construction workers…), then it’s certainly something worth talking about. So cheers to an everday wine I could probably drink, well, everyday.
In my most recent, very generous allocation of Panther Creek Cellars wines, I received samples of each single-vineyard bottling of the winery’s estate Pinot Noirs. How does one choose which vineyard to taste from next? I simply went with the name. Let’s face it, we’re all quarantined/shut-in-place and *probably* feeling a tad bit more lazy than usual. Or is that just me?
This is a continuation of my tour of Panther Creek Cellars’ various vineyard sources. Today, we travel to Kalita Vineyard, located in the Yamhill Carlton AVA of Oregon, and planted entirely to Pinot Noir.
A bit about the vineyard from the Kalita Vineyard website:
Year planted: 2000
Varieties planted: Pinot Noir
Clones: Pommard, PN 114, PN 115, PN 777, all on grafted rootstock
Acreage planted: 22 acres
Now onto the wine…
My latest shipment from Panther Creek Cellars came with single-vineyard Pinot Noir from each of the winery’s estate vineyards. Super fun. I had the chance to compare the vineyards last year, so was so pleased to get to experience the 2017 release this year. The new kid on the block: Maverick Vineyard. In fact, this vineyard, located in the Yamhill-Carlton AVA of Oregon was only planted seven years ago, in 2013. For those of you unfamiliar with a vine’s growth cycle, typically the first three years of a vine’s life does not produce any fruit (or at least not enough or enough quality fruit to make wine). So, I imagine, 2017 was really the first harvest that yielded enough fruit to make enough sellable wine. And even then, only 150 cases were produced. So, how did the new kid fare?
This was literally a case of, “Do you want a red or white wine with dinner tonight?” The fact of the matter was the meal could have easily paired with either. So, I thought, heck, why not try this (for me) experimental blend I just received in my latest allocation of Panther Creek new releases. It’s a cool concept: Take off the skins of the red wine grape and ferment it like a white and then, blend it with another white. No reason it shouldn’t work…
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