Pinot Noir on Sale

Well it's that time of year again, once or twice a year Constellation Brands, the world's largest wine brand, put their delicious People's Pinot Noir on sale.

The wine is a relative bargain at its' usual retail of $17.99 but at the reduced price of $15.99 it is an absolute must buy . With the holiday season not that far away I'd advise breaking open the piggy bank and picking up a case but if you aren't feeling that generous, or flush, then at least grab a few bottles to enjoy on your own.

I first reviewed this wine last year in November and my impression hasn't changed after the latest bottle. Once again the wine has broad distribution but not a whole lot in any particular store so if you want a case you'll probably have to get your regular store to order one in for you.

I've published a picture of the wine before so instead I thought I'd show the folks who usually hang out near the Central Otago Pinot Noir vineyards.

Cheap Pinot Noir, the search continues

As I've noted before in this blog the search for cheap Pinot Noir is a bit of an obsession for many in the wine community.  Like Ahab seeking Moby Dick or Monty Python pursuing the Holy Grail, wine enthusiasts chase after each new whiff or rumour of inexpensive wines that capture the essence of the most mercurial, and therefore most sought after varietal, Pinot Noir.

The problem with Pinot Noir is that not only is it tough to grow, it's also tough to make wine from after you grow it.  Pinot Noir is genetically unstable, the fruit of any season may not even resemble the fruit of the parent vine in size, shape, cluster, flavour or aroma.  To give you an idea of how tough it is to keep track of Pinot Noir consider that Cabernet Sauvignon has twelve identifiable clones, or types if you will, whereas Pinot Noir has forty six recognized in Burgundy alone and as many as 250 to 1,000 different genetic variants worldwide, according to an ongoing study at Cornell University.  So the Pinot Noir you grew last year may not be the same as the one you grow this year, even if the weather was identical, making consistency a bit of a problem.  Even after you grow the Pinot Noir the fermentation process is fraught with risk as the grape's high number of amino acids cause it to ferment violently often speeding the process beyond a winemaker's control, toss in difficult colour retention due to thin skins and a propensity to acetification, souring, and you have to wonder why anyone bothers.

Well they bother because when everything aligns the results are simply sublime, little Jesus sliding down your throat in silk pyjamas, or velvet trousers,  and all that.  Great Pinot Noir is one of the true treasures of the wine world, I'm not sure anything else compares, but finding reasonable representations at the $12-$20 range is much harder than with almost any other red varietal except perhaps Nebbiolo.  Still we try, endlessly we search the shelves in the hopes of an epiphany and occasionally we are rewarded, I've written before about The People's Pinot Noir and Little Yering Pinot Noir and last night I tried another contestant.

Santa Carolina Reserva Pinot Noir is from an old, established in 1875, and massive, over 2 million cases produced annually, Chilean winery.  I haven't spent a lot of time drinking the wines of Santa Carolina, I've occasionally bought their Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon when it goes on sale, although at $12.99 it's already good value but have not tried the Pinot Noir recently, or their highly regarded Syrah which retails at $17.99. 

Anyway I grabbed a bottle of the Reserva Pinot Noir and popped the cork last night to go with a herb crusted pork roast and the results were pretty good.  Let's temper the expectations folks, this is after all $14 Pinot Noir, but the wine was varietally true and enjoyable.  The nose was fragrant with strawberry, rose petal and a hint of tomato and the flavour followed up with more strawberry, a bit of black cherry and a touch of earthy rhubarb/beet, all perfectly normal and correct for the variety.  The weight was a little light however and the high alcohol dominated slightly, the finish was reasonable but after the bottle had been open thirty minutes or so the wine began to assert an overly acidic tone.


Overall I'd give this bottle a moderate recommendation, it's real Pinot Noir and reasonably priced but I'd probably be inclined to spend the extra $3 and buy the People's Pinot Noir, still if you want Pinot Noir under $15 the Santa Carolina is just fine.

Prawns and Alsace, sort of

One thing about daughter being away is that wife and I can indulge in some of the food that daughter does not enjoy, few though they are. One thing daughter does not eat is shellfish, she ate prawns as a child but once she became more cognitive she has refused the sweet little critters.

Monday had originally been pencilled in as an opportunity to go out for sushi or curry, both things daughter avoids, but wife felt poorly on the weekend and stated that she would prefer dinner at home "if that was alright with me", and it was. I originally thought about making something with crab but then realized that I didn't want to be bothered cleaning Dungeness and didn't want to go to Costco to pick up blue crab meat, always available and always a good deal. With crab out of the mix I then selected a menu of pan seared prawns with risotto and roasted broccoli, my preference for seasoning the prawns would normally be shallots, lemon and garlic but wife has garlic issues and I'd already decided to add lemon to the risotto and the roasted broccoli so I had to come up with something else.

A quick glance in the fridge revealed some sweet Thai chili sauce so I thought "Hey that'll work", but I didn't want too much sweetness so I cut 1/4 cup of chili sauce with a teaspoon of rice wine vinegar and added a drop, or maybe two, of habanero sauce and the result was yummy. I peeled the prawns, added salt and pepper and they were ready to go . I sauteed a diced tomato with some chopped shallot in a butter/EVOO combo until the tomato gave up its' liquid and then added the prawns at high heat for roughly 3 minutes until they were nicely pink then added the chili sauce for about 30 seconds.

The result was excellent, the sweet Thai chili was nicely offset by the light vinegar and touch of heat and the rich creamy risotto was balanced by the earthy, salty flavours of the roasted broccoli tossed with lemon and romano cheese. With a lot of sweet, rich flavours wine might have posed an issue but I had a couple of bottles of Noble Blend from Joie Farm Winery on hand and it was a perfect match. Noble blend is an homage to the Alsatian tradition of field pick wines with a variety of Germanic style grapes blended together to make an Edelzwicker or Gentil wine that is fruit forward but with enough acidity to carry food. The Noble Blend 2010 was a blend of primarily Riesling and Gewurztraminer with Pinot Gris and Pinot Auxerrois also in the mix resulting in a mouthful of lemon and orange citrus with a bit of spice and mineral to keep the fruit at bay. This wine is a great compliment to asian cuisine and excellent just on it's own, Joie makes around 3,500 cases a year of Noble Blend annually and while it's not cheap at around the $24 mark I recommend having a bottle or two on hand for the summer.

Also on Monday I got good news when visiting the BCLDB store in that I discovered that The People's Pinot Noir from Central Otago is once more discounted to $15.99 a bottle. I posted about this wine back in November of 2011, read it here and have continued to drink it regularly since then, but with a $2 a bottle incentive I see no reason not to buy a case of this excellent New Zealand Pinot before the price goes back up at the end of the month. The wine has reasonable distribution with the bulk in the Yaletown store and 4 cases each in Collingwood-Kingsway and Broadway-Lillooet - who knew the Eastside was Pinot territory ?

Stop the Presses ! I found good inexpensive Pinot Noir

I was all set to post about another pizza red but last night for wife's birthday dinner we had pan roasted pork chops with lemon risotto and I chose a bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir to accompany dinner.

The chops had an herbal, garlicky component to them and along with the richness of risotto I wanted something lighter to drink. I actually went to the store intending to grab a Cru Beaujolais but the selection and pricing didn't suit me so I wandered over to the New Zealand section and noticed that there was a Central Otago Pinot Noir on sale for $15.99. This was surprising to me because Otago Pinot Noirs are scarce in the BC market and I've never seen one below $20 before but since I had backup at home in the form of a nice Chianti Classico I thought "Why not give it a shot ?".

Just before plating I cracked the screw cap and poured, the colour was deeper than I would have thought, a good sign, and the nose had a nice sweet aroma of cherries, licorice and a bit of pepper. The taste was bright and clean, with more cherry, a bit of chocolate and coffee and little of the candied strawberry that tends to define inexpensive Pinot Noir.The mouth feel was creamy and the finish was long and most importantly it was obviously, unequivocally, Pinot Noir.

The search for inexpensive Pinot Noir is almost Holy Grail-like, time consuming, wrought with failure and can be obsessive to the point of institutionalization, the whole Sideways thing. People ask me why do we seek inexpensive Pinot Noir and the simple answer is because Pinot Noir, properly made, is so delicious that we deserve to drink it more often .

Anyway, the wine is called The People's Pinot Noir, it's a boutique project of Constellation brands, the world's largest wine company and owners of a number of wineries and vineyards in New Zealand. Constellation's sheer size means the cost of production is lower so that's why, even at it's regular price of $17.99 this wine is excellent value. The wine has good distribution but there isn't a ton of stock currently available so I would recommend grabbing a few bottles to have on hand for the holiday season, that is if you can avoid drinking it before the holidays arrive.