January 15, 2009

Stonechurch 2004 Pinot Noir Reserve


(Re-Tasted January 2009) ... Goodness, gracious me ... a line most memorably uttered by Peter Sellers in a duet with Sophia Loren, and that would be the way I would describe this wine; but not in a cutesy way, like the song, but in a disappointing way - as if to say, what the heck is this stuff. I don't usually bad mouth a wine but in this column I can not sugar coat. Here I try older wines that I have stored and see where they are today. The wines are no longer available at the winery, so the only place that one could find this wine is in one's cellar - and if you have a bottle of this all I can say is, "you poor bastard". This wine was a delicious Pinot upon its release, but the years have not been kind to it at all. Could it be the fault of the plastic cork or is it faulty winemaking - I'm not sure, but this wine was absolutely abysmal. The stink emenating from the glass was not what you expect from Pinot (you expect a little earthy and a litte dirty), but this was just funky and foul. Here are my exact notes from this opening and tasting: "Not pleasant at all, awful stink on the nose with an underlying nastiness of decay and roting fruit, dirty, but not the kind you'd expect to find on a Pinot ... sour, bitter taste." I let the wine sit for an hour, two and three, after the fourth hour my notes read, "has settled into just plain nasty - old used gym sock nasty." Sorry Stonechurch, this wine did not stand the time of time - in this dimension or any other. Yuck!

No comments: