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Pinot Noir is recently getting some attention from the movie "Sideways," however it is definitely not a newcomer to the wine making community. After a little role playing from a scene in that movie, we have found some very interesting things about this facinating grape.

Pinot Noir is one of the oldest grape varieties known. It gets its name from a derivitive of the word for "pinecone" and can be found across the globe in places like Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, United States, and Yugoslavia. It is however one of the most difficult grapes to cultivate and create wine with. It is susceptible to almost every kind of disease. It does tolerate cold climates (note the geography of the listed countries above,) however early frosts can damage the vines. The fact that the grapes are thin-skinned adds to the problems as they can dry out very quickly if not picked at peak maturity.

It doesn't make it easy for the Vintner as it is considered "genetically unstable," which means it mutates very easily making consistency tough .Because of the mutations that can occur, there have sprung up over a thousand different clones belonging to the Pinot family. You may have become familiar with some of them as they include, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier, and many others.

The growing climate requires a long, cool season too. Making this into wine is difficult as well, as its multitude of amino acids can cause it to ferment violently and expand over the fermentation vessel. There is the possibility too for it to lose its pleasant aroma as soon as it is bottled. It is just a lot of work to nurture this grape into a winning wine! This makes finding an acceptable Pinot Noir frustrating at times because of the wide gap between the high and low quality versions of this wine.

Current viticulturalists are working on these problems and are improving the methods of site selection and vinification techniques. The areas growing American Pinot Noir where success is being found include some of the locations that we will sample from in tonight's tastings; Santa Maria Valley, Carneros, Russian River Valley and in several area of Monterey County, Willamette Valley and even York county, Pennsylavania..

The descriptors of Pinot Noir include:
Black Cherry, Blackberry, Wild Berry, Raspberry, Currant, Plum/Jam, Cola, Strawberry, Floral, Violet, Sage/Bayleaf, Mint, Cinnamon, Spicy, Anise/Licorice, Mineral, Chocolate, White Pepper, Tea, Tobacco, Earthy, Truffles, Mushroom, Gamey, Caramel, Vanilla, Smoke, Toasty, and Cedar.