Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Virtual Offline Tasting November 14-16

2006 Castle Rock Pinot Noir Sonoma County

It maybe wise to try this over two nights since it is so young. We'll post the notes on Saturday November 17.

15 comments:

Dr. Dietz said...

Castle Rock... ok.. .if the past is any guide, this will be nice, drinkable, but not profound..which will be ok.. these are a good example of what they are, and what they are is ok..

Dr. Dietz said...

11/13/2007 rated 85 points: Ok, so this is relatively easy drinking, esp. if served somewhat cool. As the wine warms it becomes a bit disagreeable and hot. Not much on the nose, homogeneous on the palate with somewhat sweet red fruit. Reminds me a bit of the Kenwood we had at the last VLG Pinot tasting. Very short finish.

This is fine for just having a beverage, but there is not much to recommend it as something from which one might get pleasure. An LC 3.5-

J@VLG said...

The wine didn’t show much on the aromatics. Not going to grab you but still pleasant. Sweet fruit on the palate. Not overripe. For some reason it reminded me of an old school California “Jug” Burgundy. That is not meant to be a slam … but probably would not be taken as a compliment. It is glycerol like across the palate. Texturally boring but it is an 06. I actually thought this wine could improve with about 12 months of bottle time. Decent balance … no complexity but hey … it is an 06. A fruity young inexpensive pinot.

There are 47,000 cases of this wine so bottle variation is inevitable.

Also it should be noted that this does have 20% syrah!

I gave it 86 points!

Jason

Dr. Dietz said...

I'm not at all surprised about the 20% Syrah (how did you know this?? on their website??). The color was waaaay too dark for a Pinot.

Tonite we had the '05 Williams Selyem Sonoma County Pinot, and when I asked Lorena if she could see the similarities with the Castle Rock she had a good laugh.

J@VLG said...

Regarding the Syrah ... Yeah the website. I knew they did this in most of their Pinot.

Glad the WS Sonoma County was good. The Sonoma Coast was not much better than the Castle Rock!

Dr. Dietz said...

Yikes on the W-S Sonoma Coast!!

sandy said...

Well, at such a good price, I really wanted to love this ... or at least like it. But I felt like I was drinking a wine you would be served on an airplane - sort of drinking for drinking's sake, if that makes any sense. I had to resist the urge to go open something else. I did not get any aromas out of the glass. Red berries that were difficult to discern on the palate ... perhaps candied strawberries? Very one dimensional. But at $7.99, what do you expect? (Although some retailers here in Texas have doubled that price!) Ah, well.

darrenv said...

I LOVE the idea of trying these inexpensive wines in hopes of finding hidden gems. Unfortunately, we have not found it with this one. Let's not give up!!! Thanks J.

We waited until tonight so we could give it a chance over two nights. I will say that it showed much better tonight than it did last night.

First Night:
Food - Filet Mignon, Yellow Squash, Garlic Linguine

Nose - Couldn't really pick out much on the nose. Alcohol is about all I could smell. Fruit were buried.

Palate - Wine seemed hot, uneventful, lacking any one component I could grab onto and say "ooooooohhh". Perhaps it needed to cool.

Finish - Short, unmemorable.

Second Night:
Food - In-n-out Double-Double, Fries

Nose - Bright cherry with a hint of leather. Not much, but not bad.

Palate - *Wine was cooler in temp. Tasted strawberries and plum (maybe a hint of prune) masked by something I couldn't place but, overall, just wasn't totally fond of.

Finish - Not unpleasant at all but going, going, gone. "long and harmonious?" - not mine, but minded less the more I drank. ;)

Of the 47,000 cases, I may have just had a so-so one.

I give it a $5.99 and I've never rated wines by price, but for this particular tasting, I kept thinking of wines I'd purchased around this price that are similar. And I believe I've had some 6.99-7.99 wines that were better.

Anonymous said...

I must say that we had a similar experience with the wine. We had it Saturday night with grilled pork and a mushroom/spinach saute on the side. It was served at room temperature and could have used a little bit of a cool down. I couldn't detect much on the nose.. other than alcohol. Once it sat for a few minutes, I could detect red fruit and a little smoke on the nose. It was sweet on the palate, which made it drinkable, and hot at the end.

Initially, I felt like there was some sort of storage issue because of the bit of alcohol on the nose and the heat at the end. I assumed that it was my fault but now that I've read the other comments, it may not have been.

All that to say, we were still able to enjoy the experience... it just wasn't a favorite.

scottie said...

Am I allowed to comment??? I'm not sure, but I'm Melisa's husband, and I was her co-taster for this wine on Saturday evening.

I had no idea that this wine was 20% Syrah, but I told Melisa that it tasted like a blend to me. It was a bit too fruity for a Pinot. With the peppery finish, I told Melisa that I thought it had some Syrah blended in.

Anyway, I also found the nose to consist mostly of alcohol. I pulled out some smokey leathery scents as well, I think. My noice nose is still learning to pick out the aromas.

The wine hit the palate with a splash of fruit flavors, maybe some raspberry and strawberry flavors. The finish, however took on more of a dark, smokey, peppery note.

Syrah and Pinot are my two favorite wines, so I actually enjoyed this wine for what it is. I think I prefer a Pinot to taste more like Pinot, and this one didn't to me. However, I still enjoyed the wine, and thought that it was priced accordingly. I've had wine in this price range that was far less drinkable.

I hope to join you all for a wine lunch sometime with Melisa. If it weren't for the whole part about having to "work".

Thanks for letting me butt in on this thread!

Karnopolis said...

My feelings on this wine were quite similiar to others.

The nose was simple. Red fruit - cherries if you dig deap. Nothing profound.

The pallet was unidimensional but pleasing. Fruit was primary to the senses. I sensed very little tannin, if any at all. Some heat at the end. I think an appropriate term would be inaccesible. Time may make this wine quite interesting, but not today. 84 points from me.

I also appreciate the idea of inexpensive wines that are easily aquired for a Tuesday evening. We should keep the quest going.

J@VLG said...

WOW! Great stuff. Thanks all for participating. Way to go Scottie! I hope you can make it to a tasting soon. Well we will do some time of work party ... and I suspect there will be some nice wine there. If you make it to a lunch you'll taste a lot of nice stuff.

Where is Tom!?! Tom!

I know Cynthia is going to step up in a few days.

And Sandy ... when it came to my bottle ... I actually would not mind being served it on an airplane. I have had worse. But that was a great quote ... this is a generic wine ... and we all are a little spoiled.

But VIVA LE BARGAINS!!! Pricing is getting ridiculous.

I advise the Houstonians to look out for the Belle Pente that won our tasting.

J

sandy said...

Oh, I am definitely spoiled! In fact, I think I tried this directly after breaking into my Scott Paul Burgundy shipment, so that brought everything else down in comparison. :)

Thanks for the tip on the Belle Pente!

Anonymous said...

I am so far behind. Yeah, echoing the "pleasant but not great" comments, here I am. There was a bit of heaviness on the nose that I tend to find in pinots at this price level. But on the palate it was rather nice. Quaffable ... not surprised at the Syrah inclusion; there is this little bit of something a bit too brooding and heavy that distracts from me. In any case, this was much better than my last Castle Rock experience. Worthy of a drink.

Anonymous said...

I apologize for getting late into the game but we finally had a chance to taste a few glasses last night.

Wine served right out of our cellar at 55 degrees.

William & I both liked the wine in a sense that it's pretty easy to drink, but it doesn't give excitement or pleasure. We keep wanting more out of the wine but there's not any to give other than what's already there. We did detect sweet floral, and a bit of strawberry, but that's all. The wine is one dimensional, and the finish is very short. It's a bit too sweet for a Pinot than we're used to drinking...

In conclusion, will we buy more of this? Probably not. If someone serves us this wine at an occasion, will we drink it? I guess probably... but if there are other choices...

I echo Sandy's comment on this wine as a reminder of what an airline would serve... It's too funny. I felt the same way.