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So, the next wine on my journey through Barefoot is their Pinot Noir.
Thanks to Sideways, there are a lot of cheap, crappy Pinot Noirs on the market today. Pinot Noir is a fussy diva of a grape, and frankly, unless you want to lay out at least $30, you're going to get an "eh" bottle of wine.
On the other hand, if you're going spend under $30 for a bottle of Pinot Noir, it might as well be Barefoot Pinot Noir.
Color: A darker, richer "wine" color than most other Pinots I've seen. (I wonder what the blending grape is.)
Sniff Test: Black Cherries and Toasty Vanilla, very pleasantly so.
First Impressions: Black Cherry up front, tannins on middle, some allspice on the finish.
Breathing room: Black Cherry up front, a bland, slightly less tannic middle, definite allspice on the end, and a pleasant vanilla aftertaste. Mouthfeel is light, as if this were a white wine.
Verdict: Like I said, if you're going to spring for an bottle of Pinot Noir in the $7-10 range, it might as well be this. The cherries up front and that lingering vanilla finish, make it pleasant as an everyday table wine, but the middle note is nothing but tannins and that's a serious shortcoming.
December 16 2009, 12:34:24 UTC 2 years ago
Cooper's Hawk Pinot Noir is great (they don't distribute but some states can order online) - as is Newport Vineyards, from IL and RI respectively. And, I find the Mark West Pinot Noir not too bad for a lower price point.
December 16 2009, 15:23:47 UTC 2 years ago
There are some great Oregon pinots for under $30. Granted, most of them are in the mid-$20s. One I just had which was pretty decent -- good value for the price ($19.99) -- was from Amity Vineyards
December 17 2009, 00:26:14 UTC 2 years ago
I'm drinking my way through their offerings for the "oh, why the hell not" factor of it.
I don't think I tried their pinot, because any pinots I've tried under $15 have been horrible... sometimes not even drinkable.
This has been pretty much my experience, too. I've found some under $15 wines (Merlot, Zin, Riesling, Shiraz, Gewurztraminer) that I think are fantastic values for the money. I've yet to find a value PN that I thought offered a lot of bang for the buck.
December 17 2009, 01:56:04 UTC 2 years ago
definitely.
not so sure about the merlot, but the other varietals you mention seem to be more reasonable bets at the low-end prices
So, word to the wise: if you like wine and want to "drink cheap", look for some of those varietals mentioned above (but probably shouldn't go too cheap... the good ones I've had of each of those tend to be in the $10-$14 range)
December 28 2009, 16:34:59 UTC 2 years ago
December 16 2009, 16:08:37 UTC 2 years ago
December 16 2009, 17:59:48 UTC 2 years ago
It was pretty accurate in a lot of ways. Merlot is often horrible, just like described in the movie... and I think the reason why has nothing to do with the grape and everything to do with mass production.
Merlot sort of became the "de facto" grape for a lot of low-quality California red wines. When people got "wine in a box", or if people were add a party and were asked whether they wanted "red wine" or "white wine", that usually meant: red = crappy quality Merlot; white = crappy quality Chardonnay. I think this is part of the reason a negative association has been built up with those varietals.
So the bottom line is I think that there was an overabundance of Merlot being produced, and whenever you have a ton of something being made, a lot of it is bound to be bad (case in point: YouTube)
December 16 2009, 18:11:40 UTC 2 years ago
Pinot Noir is the grape getting ruined right now. I love Burgandy wines, but I just cannot get into the grape when it's Californian.
December 16 2009, 19:27:49 UTC 2 years ago
I tried some up and down Napa Valley, and they were consistently bad (yet cabs here are pretty consistently good)
Then I had Oregon pinots... very good! Then I popped into a place in Calistoga and tried theirs... it was also good, and I was shocked because that's still Napa Valley. But then I looked at the bottle / notes and noticed that the vineyards are not anywhere near Napa... they are at the cooler, wetter California coast (Mendocino county)
So from what I've noticed, some of the cooler, wetter temperate climates (California coast, Oregon, parts of France, Germany) create some good pinots; other climates (especially warm valleys like Napa and Central California) really do not.
And as for Merlot... yes, there are some good ones out there so it's a shame that some (ignorant) "snobs" don't give it a chance. I rarely find a merlot I like, but there have been a few great ones.
December 16 2009, 19:31:32 UTC 2 years ago
December 17 2009, 15:02:08 UTC 2 years ago
December 16 2009, 18:04:58 UTC 2 years ago
I think I've noticed the flavor of pinot varying more widely than probably any other grape I've tried, based on region/weather/terroir. I can even tell huge differences from vintage to vintage from the same plot of land (for a lot of grapes, the variation in flavor from year to year seems minimal at best); for example, in Oregon I tried several 2006 and 2007 vintages from the same vineyards. In every case, I liked the 2007 better even though the 2006 was supposedly a "better" or more sought-after year because the weather that year caused bolder, more intense flavors. (So the 2007s were lighter, milder, smooth, and more earthy; the 2006s were darker, more tannic, less earth and more berry)
December 16 2009, 22:13:07 UTC 2 years ago
Unfortunately for Merlot Sideways did give it a lot of bad press, but alas Miles' character had to be anal about one particular grape (Pinot) and despise another (merlot).