The World Pinot Noir Competition

An unprecedented competition featuring the world's greatest Pinot Noirs was held yesterday in Pasadena. Russ Meek, managing partner of Red, White & Bluezz, organized this slapdown to prove once and for all, amongst a group of thirteen wine professionals, whose bottle truly reigns supreme. The "best of the best" from the vintages of 1990 through 2001 were on the table. Wines were represented from Oregon, California, Burgundy, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. And names like Marcassin, Serafin, Bindi, Beaux Freres, Cristom, Serafin, Williams Selyem and DRC were in play.

As a judge on the panel, I sat down to two flights of ten Pinot Noirs, poured blind. Russ implored us not to try to determine which of the wines was which, or even agonize about where we thought they were from. Rather, the idea was to determine which truly expressed a purity of the grape and showed typicity, as well as complexity. Of course, there is always the "wow" factor to consider as well. Ultimately, we were asked to rank the twenty wines poured in descending order from best to worst.

While all the fun of these kinds of tastings is the period during which you are analyzing the wines, it doesn't really make for a very interesting blog. Reading twenty blind tasting notes, I'd probably lose you around wine number four. So, here are the results, with some brief commentary from my notebook:





The Top Ten in ascending order:






#10: Tolosa Estate 2001: Heavily oaked, rosey and potpourri, perhaps a bit too much alcohol on the nose and volatile acidity
#9: Bindi 'Original Vineyard' 1997: Savory and meaty nose, celery and tomato juice with salt - A Bloody Mary!, rhubarb and earth, peak drinking and haunting! This was my #3 vote.
#8: Serafin 'Charmes Chambertin' 1999: Youthful, expressive red fruits, brown sugar note that comes off as sweeter, very balanced palate with earth
#7: Williams Selyem 'Rochiolli' 1991: Super-intense nose of oak, fruit cake, cherry cobbler, coconut. Over-oaked and over-the-top!
#6: DRC 'La Tache' 1990: Sour cherry, dried flowers, tree bark, mushrooms, significant earth and exquisite balance, while still structured. Silky texture.
#5: Cristom 'Marjorie' 1996: Tangy red fruits, meaty and savory, green notes, leaves, earth and mushroom, still present tannin, velvet texture, elegant, dusty oak in the finish, red-fruited acidity drives a long finish. This was my #2!
#4: Daniel Schuster 'Omihi' 2001: Very intensely sour red fruits with earth, salt and singed herbs. Might be too tangy for most. Baked red fruits with rhubarb. Horsey character as well. Still showing structure. Animalistic!
#3: Hudelot-Noelle 'Richebourg' 1999: Candied red fruit, watermelon rind, anise, sweet strawberry, soft florality, blackberry seeds. Firmly structured and seeming very young and primary. Way ahead of its peak, but has the potential to be phenomenal. Long finish. This was my #4.
#2: Mortet 'Clos de Vougeot' 1996: Evolved character, but still fresh as well. Dusty spices, perfumey potpourri and very expressive. Pure red fruits on the palate, welling acidity, earth tones and fine, chalky tannin. Super-long finish and drinking in what appears to be its peak. Refreshing quality! My #1 wine of the tasting!
#1: McKenna 'Martinborough' 1998: Tangy red fruits with forest floor and mushroom, balanced and appearing youthful still. Evolved quickly with air showing further earth character. Fruit in secondary development, fairly structured, dusty, anise. Very good, but perhaps just ahead of its peak.

In order from #11 through #20, these were the remaining wines on the table:

Bass Phillip Reserve 1998,
Williams Selyem 'Allen' 1995,
Furst Centgrafenberg "R" 2000,
Marcassin 'Marcassin Vineyard' 1998,
Beaux Freres 'Beaux Freres Vineyard' 1994,
Lignier 'Clos de la Roche' 1995,
DDO 'Laurene' 1999,
Patz and Hall 'Alder Springs' 1999,
Yarra Yering 1997,
Yering Station 'Reserve' 1997.

What is to be learned from all of this? As it almost always happens, the voting is completely across the board when there are this many "great" wines on the table. It's a classic case of "splitting hairs" and personal preferences. And, furthermore, this is just a snapshot of all of these wines' lives. The results would be completely different with different tasters, on a different day, or with even different bottles of the same wines. While interesting to see the results of, by no means should the results of this kind of tasting influence anyone's decisions on what to keep in their cellar or on their wine list.

Peronally, I learned that I have more of an affinity for Burgundy than I thought I did. I placed all five Burgs in my top 11 out of 20, including #1. I was still happy to see that my top 3 were diverse, including France, Australia and Oregon. It reinforces my hope that I will always keep an open mind regarding wine regions and styles. This was a very successful tasting for me and certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to taste all these wines together.