Why is it so hard to find a reasonably priced Pinot Noir that actually tastes like the grape? That was the question that came to mind over and over again when I tasted a group of 16 Pinot Noirs that cost $20 a bottle or less.
With a few notable exceptions, I found three basic types: the simple, the sweet and the vegetal. The simple Pinots tasted like lightly fermented red juice of indeterminate origin. The sweet ones recalled cherry cheesecake or perhaps a cherry cupcake—as the tasting note on the back label of the 2017 Cupcake Central Coast Pinot Noir actually characterized the wine inside. Wines in the third category would be better likened to a bowl of green beans than a bottle of fermented Pinot Noir grapes.
I decided to ask a few of the winemakers whose Pinots I actually liked why it was so hard to make a good wine at an affordable price. According to Melissa Burr, winemaker of Stoller Family Estate in Dayton, Ore., the farming and production cost of Pinot is much higher than most other grapes, and the yields are much smaller. “If we could ripen 6-7 tons of Pinot Noir we could really do well, but we are closer to 3-4 tons maximum,” she said.
And yet Ms. Burr’s earthy, savory 2017 Stoller Family Estate Pinot Noir Dundee Hills ($20) proved it’s possible to produce a pleasurable wine with varietal typicity at a good price. Ms. Burr explained that the estate’s owner, Bill Stoller, is committed to producing an affordable Pinot Noir and is willing to make a smaller profit to do it. “He was adamant about making a wine that would over-deliver,” she said.
It helps that Mr. Stoller owns a great deal of land, with 215 acres planted to grapes. That means Ms. Burr doesn’t need to buy much fruit from growers. This is also the case for Craig McAllister, the New Zealand-born winemaker at La Crema, the Jackson Family Wines label. The Jackson family holds many Pinot Noir vineyards in California and Oregon, which Mr. McAllister accesses to make both the La Crema Sonoma Coast and the La Crema Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs. I was particularly keen on the 2017 vintage of the Willamette Valley wine ($20), which I found richly textured with notes of dark fruit and spice.
The Drouhin family also have significant vineyard holdings, in both Burgundy and Oregon, including many grand- and premier-cru vineyards. Yet winemaker Véronique Boss-Drouhin sources much of the fruit for her entry-level Bourgogne Pinot Noir, the lithe and lively 2017 Joseph Drouhin LaForêt Bourgogne Pinot Noir ($14), largely from other growers. “It is, in a sense, even more difficult to make a very good entry-level wine than a grand cru,” she wrote in an email. She must select and blend fruit sourced all over Burgundy—from the northern Côte-d’Or to Côte Chalonnaise in the south—to make the final wine, a synthesis of the delicate and powerful. It is also quite expensive in terms of manpower.
It may be more affordable to grow Pinot Noir in Marlborough, New Zealand, than in Burgundy, but it is no less arduous to produce a truly good wine in this cool-climate region better known for its Sauvignon Blancs. The sun can be intense and the winds quite strong, according to Stu Marfell, winemaker at the Marlborough-based Dashwood Wines, mostly owned by Bill Foley of California-based
It takes “a lot of intensive care and attention in the winemaking” to make a good Pinot Noir there, he said.
Mr. Marfell produced a very pretty, savory 2017 Dashwood Pinot Noir Marlborough. Its price ($11) was set deliberately low, he said, because he considers the wine an ambassador of sorts for New Zealand Pinot Noir. The Dashwood Pinot is sourced from Marlborough sub-regions including the Awatere Valley, whose clay soils give the wine “depth and body.” A Pinot Noir grown on the wrong site or one that is “over-cropped” (i.e., with vines carrying more fruit than can possibly ripen) is likely to be pretty and light, he explained, but without much character or flavor intensity.
That was my experience with many of the Pinot Noirs in my tasting, I told Mr. Marfell. His notes on affordable Pinots were remarkably similar to my own. “It’s hard to find wines at that price that really show varietal character,” he said. He finds that they are often either very light in color and body, with strawberry or raspberry on the nose, or overripe and inky in color, with notes of Port, raisin and jam on the nose.
I found some Pinot Noirs of the latter description in my group of wines, particularly those from California. The 2017 Böen Pinot Noir, for example, a big, jammy wine from Joe Wagner, tasted more like Syrah than Pinot. Indeed, Pinot Noir was not only near-undetectable in terms of taste but also on the label. While there was specific information as to where the grapes were sourced (52% Monterey County, 23% Sonoma County, 25% Santa Barbara County ), and a good many words about the wine’s “enveloping mouthfeel” and “knowhow garnered over generations,” the fact that the wine was Pinot Noir appeared incidental, inside and out.
Perhaps this could be a useful guideline for drinkers deciding between one cheap Pinot and another: The least impressive wines invariably wore the greatest number of words on their back labels—never useful notes on the wine or the place where it was made, but rather musings on, say, mortality. “We are here so briefly that missing a single opportunity to connect with people seems a crime,” opined the back label note on the 2016 Ramsay North Coast Pinot Noir. The back label of the 2017 Josh Cellars Central Coast Pinot Noir, meanwhile, toasted “the man I called Josh” and promised a “wine made in a style reminiscent of Burgundy.” I have no idea what that “reminiscent of Burgundy” means.
The best Pinot Noirs featured a few lines about a region, or else specific tasting notes on their back labels. Ms. Boss-Drouhin, for instance, merely noted “raspberries, red currants and soft tannins” in her LaForêt Bourgogne Pinot Noir (all present in the wine). She knows good wines don’t need dressing up with words; they will always speak for themselves.
Photo:
F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal
2017 Joseph Drouhin LaForêt Bourgogne Pinot Noir $14 The Drouhin name is synonymous with great Burgundy, but the family makes good Pinot Noir too—like this very pretty, rather light-bodied wine marked by notes of red cherry and spice.
2017 Angeline Vineyards California Pinot Noir $11 Although the back-label note is suspiciously vague as to the origin of the fruit (“blended from some of California’s finest vineyards”), this pleasant medium-bodied Pinot delivers modest pleasure at a modest price.
2017 La Crema Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Oregon $20 Marked by notes of black currant and spice, this wine is fairly rich and full bodied, aged in French oak barrels (about 17% new). It’s also more powerful and higher in alcohol (14.5%) than the other Pinots listed here.
2017 Dashwood Pinot Noir Marlborough $11 While Marlborough is chiefly famous for Sauvignon Blanc, its cool climate is also suited to Pinot Noir. This medium-bodied wine with lively acidity and a ripe cherry note delivers bang for the buck.
2017 Stoller Family Estate Pinot Noir Dundee Hills $20 This medium- to full-bodied Pinot from Oregon’s famed Dundee Hills is a polished wine marked by aromas of dark fruit, earth and even a bit of cola. It’s an easy-drinking yet savory style.
VINOUS VALUE / PLEASURABLE PINOT NOIRS AVAILABLE FOR $20 AND UNDER
