The first varietal themed wine party in an apparent series, “Show Me Your Pinot,” went off with out a hitch this past weekend. I joined a group of friends where everyone’s mission was to bring a brown-bagged bottle of Pinot Noir, no stipulations other than that. We tasted through them all completely blind, took a few unbiased notes, and picked our favourites. Most of the wines ended up being in the $20-$40ish range (not a single bottle of Bonne-Mares snuck into the mix), and unsurprisingly, there was a heavy BC representation. The biggest revelation for me was how much Old World charm a couple of the BC wines were expressing. A nice balance of fruit character and secondary aromas with some elegance and soft silky texture versus the slutty and unnecessarily weighty model with too much oak and green tannin. “Is this a big chocolatey Merlot?” One of the few French bottles in the mix was unfortunately corked (Domaine Bachelet-Ramonet ’05 Bourgogne), increasing the ratio of New World examples. I brought the Austrian Gesellmann ‘03 Pinot Noir “Siglos” to see if anyone else would appreciate it and some did.

Here’s how I rated the seven remaining unfaulted bottles from first to seventh:

1. Saturna Vintner’s Select ’06 Pinot Noir

Saturna Island, BC – $20ish
Really? This is still shocking to me as I tried their regular label Pinot Noir a couple weeks ago and completely panned it. This bottle displayed great intensity, a fair amount of complexities and a nicely evolving and lengthy finish. Light strawberry, orangey citrus, smoke and spice, some cinnamon gum and some herbal hints. Definitely more reserved in style and reminiscent of France. The label states that the fruit is sourced from some of the finest vineyards in BC, so not necessarily estate grown grapes from Saturna Island.

2. Orofino ’07 Pinot Noir

Similikameen Valley, BC – $32
Another pleasant surprise for me. A little softer than the Saturna and with more minerality (Jen used “Flintstones Vitamins” as a tasting note, and I think that’s a great association for a minerally wine). Similar characters as the Saturna with orange citrus, dried red fruits, spice and some earthiness. Another Old World style Pinot made in our backyard. Notch one up for the Similkameen Valley.

3. Gesellmann ‘03 Pinot Noir “Siglos”

Burgenland, Austria – $27.99
I knew this was the wine I brought as soon as I put my nose in the glass. It was probably the most smokey/leathery/sweaty/mushroomy out of the flight. Full tasting note here. A little stinky and definitely Old World.

4. Church and State ’06 “Church Mouse” Pinot Noir

BC – $20ish
Church and State’s website unfortunately doesn’t have a spec sheet on this wine so I don’t know if it’s Vancouver Island or Black Sage Bench fruit (they make wine from both). I tasted through their new vintage at the “Bloom VQA Spring Release” and quite enjoyed the Pinots, so this was no big surprise to me (especially since Bill Dyer is their Master Winemaker).
One of the lightest coloured wines (rosey orange core with a tawny orange rim). Tons of red fruit with some wild berry and blood orange. Cherry chapstick, some spice and a touch of leather. More of a fruit driven wine with a lusher, jucier texture than the other three. Obviously New World, but I placed it from Oregon. This is a steal at $20.

5. Jadot ’06 Bourgogne “Couvent de Jacobins”

Burgundy, France – $26.99
This wine is made from a blend of vineyards all throughout Burgundy.
I found green characters dominated this wine – spearmint and green herbs. Earthy and smokey characters with oak and some soft cherry fruit. It was either underripe or carried a character profile I didn’t care for. Regardless, I wouldn’t pay anything near $27 for a bottle of it.

6. La Crema ’07 Pinot Noir

Sonoma Coast, California – $40ish
Vanilla, oak and spice overwhelming the nose with hints of mint.
The palate was huge and juicy – more spiced oak with some soft ripe cherry and raspberry characters. This tasted like someone got a little carried away with the oak. I pegged it as California. Not my style, might mellow out with time?

7. Sonora Ranch NV Pinot Noir

A blend of BC and imported grapes (see Cellared in Canada) – $9.99
Thank you! It’s never good for your confidence to rave about a wine blind to find out it’s actually a bottle of Yellow Tail. Luckily that wasn’t the case here as this was obviously one dimensional – lots of candied red fruits (strawberry and raspberry) but not very ripe. Fruit but very little else and notably lacking tannin. For my guess of geographic origin, I literally wrote “New World, blah, BC.”

I’m very interested to try the Pinots from Saturna and Orofino again to see how they show on their own, testing whether it was a case of circumstance (the fact that there were no great bottles of Burgundy present), or if they are really as good as I wrote in my tasting notes. Regardless, I enjoyed them both and have gotten more excited about BC Pinot in general. Stay tuned for the next party “There’s No Rielsing Not to Come.” Yes, I know, this is the epitome of wine geekdom, but I think you’d be surprised at how fun it is.