Pinot Noirs or Pinots Noir?

If one drinks more than one bottle of Pinot Noir, would he be drinking Pinot Noirs? Or Pinots Noir? The former is correct, though the latter sounds better, like "passers by." In any case, the other night Edith, Gillian, Tracy, and I drank two exceptional Pinots, one from Oregon the other from Burgundy. 

Pinot Noir is perhaps the most fabled contemporary grape, mostly due to, again, the film Sideways. The character Miles, speaking more about his romantic fantasies than actual fruit, explains that Pinot "can only grow in these really specific, little tucked away corners of the world" and "only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can the coax it into its fullest expression."

Famously, that little précis of the Pinot Noir grape led to a significant bump in Pinot sales. I have to admit that I was swayed myself. I remember purchasing some decent Pinot Noir the next day, expecting some utterly magical spell to be cast in my mouth. I think I also responded to the romance of the grape, Miles's idea that the Pinot Noir required as much of its caretaker as it gave of itself. It was a description of love.

The Pinot is a magical, delicate, remote, and rewarding grape. And how quiet it is. The flavors are suggestions rather than clear statements. A well-made Pinot murmurs rather than explains. Its pleasures are even self-congratulatory. If you enjoy this wine, you feel like you know what enjoyment is.  If you can lean back and close your eyes and take it all in with the iPod dock on low, you feel like you're beginning to know something you didn't know before, about wine, about taste, about experience. At least, that's what you feel like telling yourself.  

The vineyards of Burgundy, in France, are the world's best-known and most celebrated terroir for Pinot Noir, though in recent decades Oregon has produced wines of equal stature. They're both ideal growing environments for Pinot: rainy skies and chalky soil in Burgundy and long, cool days and volcanic beds in Oregon. And I think that some of the Oregon Pinot growers have modeled their wines on French Burgundies. At least, Paul Gerrie, the maker of Cristom Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, sat at the feet of Burgundy winemakers prior to establishing his own vineyards in the States.

The wines we tasted were both exceptionally good. They were:

2006 Cristom Pinot Noir, Sommers Reserve ($41)

2005 Gevrey-Chambertin, Domaine Louis Boillot & Fils ($65)

Cristom

The Cristom was a clear and clean cherry color (Gillian). Tracy called it garnet. In any case, it fell into the glass and shone clear and bright, just like a Burgundy. The nose was pretty harsh at first, and Gillian even said it singed her nose-hairs. We could all notice the harsh attack at first, the high astringency, the sharp tannins. Tracy felt like she could smell the grape seeds themselves. The body of this wine was wonderfully light and feathery. Tracy said it reminded her of balsa wood, though admitted she wasn't sure what that really was. We were all a little taken aback by the wine's assertiveness. But 

then . . .

. . . but then we let it sit for a little while and came back to the Cristom, and things had changed. The wine was a little rounder, a little sweeter--like Twizzlers, said Gillian. It was as if the wine had been slowly undressing and we were earlier tasting some of the garments. Now, flavors emerged: I tasted roses and pepper, and a distinct and extremely pleasant vanilla bean. This wasn't the vanilla that sometimes is imparted by oak--this was more like fresh vanilla itself. And Gillian felt that there were flavors of extracted fruit, like sour cherry. Tracy picked up currant and some kind of wood, though not cedar and not oak. The finish was perhaps what we all liked the most: long, easy, smooth and rising a little before fading away.

Gevrey-Chambertin

In many ways, this wine was similar to the Cristom: it shared the bright, jewel red hue, was light, dry, and tannic in the way Burgundies are. But the aroma was a little funkier. Gillian noticed what she called "fungus and burnt" and Edith got cinnamon and truffle. Tracy and I both detected an oaky smell in the nose, though neither of us could taste it. We also found rhubarb, spice, and leather, bitter but rewarding things. The wine itself was a little drier than the Cristom, a little more rigid and austere. And the finish was much quicker than the Cristom, more modest and withdrawing. It wasn't a wine that was giving up its secrets without a little bit of a fight. You had to push.

In fact, Gillian made an analogy between these wines and skis. The Burgundy was a set of high-performance skis that would reward hard skiing, that would work with you if you pushed them hard and rode them well. The Oregon Pinot--and, by extension, Oregon Pinots in general--was a pair of cruising skis, easier to ride and less requiring of drive on the part of the skier. This seems like a smart comparison.

One thing I am taking away from this is simply how good Pinot Noir from Oregon can be. This was my first one, though Gillian brought me four more. I'll let you know how they ski.