Feb 28 2009
Pino Noir
This is the 14th installment find the 1st one here
Who didn’t see the movie “Sideways” and didn’t just love it? I did! That movie has been credited with the biggest upsurge in the interest and sales of pinot noir in the history of wine in the United States. My wife and I saw it when we were going through a phase where we only drank cabernet and occasionally a merlot – that’s it! We were stuck in a rut, but we liked it.
After seeing the movie, I thought I’d try a bottle or two and see what it was all about. I purchased a couple different pinots to try from wineries that I had at least heard of or was drinking fuller bodied reds from already. We went about trying them with an open mind and boy, were we lucky? I opened that first bottle of pinot noir and it was wonderful! Our tastes had been focused so much on cabernet that this was a fantastic shock to our mental concept of what “red wine” should taste like. My wife immediately harked back to the “sweet” sensation of her wine enjoyment of years earlier and she commented with words like, “jammy, strawberry, smooth and light”.
I had the same descriptive words on my mind for that taste experience but the most prevalent sensation was “smooth”. It was that smooth, berry, light bodied sensation with a long velvety finish that had me hooked.
We started to drink more and more pinot noir, trying as many different ones as we could and for the most part, we liked almost all of them. The most amazing thing is that we were able to find varieties that were very inexpensive and yet were just down-right great tasting. This is usually not the case with most cabernets and merlots.
We continued to drink other reds on a regular basis but, if left to our mutual desire for a bottle to enjoy together, we always seem to come back to a smooth, fruity pinot noir and do to this day. Lesson: Keep trying new wines and new grape varieties. Its soooooo rewarding!
Jim Albinger (Andrew’s dad) grew up in smalltown northwest Iowa in the 1950’s. He has been writing down his experiences looking back at all that has shaped his current wine tasting hobby. Expect to see more of Jim’s writings here at offthecork.com.
