2000 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon

Oregon and southern Washington are the same latitude as Bordeax and parts of Burgundy. Many think that this allows these regions to be the best expression of those styles of wine in the U.S. I don't know about that, but I have noticed that most of the Pinot Noir coming from wineries like Domain Drouhin and other in Oregon, tend to be much more in the earth and spice style of Burgundy. This wine is at the other end of the spectrum from the 2002 Paul Hobbs.

Tasting Notes:
Cinnabar colored in the glass, this wine has a pungent bouquet of intertwined aromas that included redcurrant, leather, eucalyptus, the typical "farmyard" smell of a good Burgundy, and interestingly, hints of dried apricot. On the tongue the wine was tannic with flavors of young crabapple, rosehips, and a slight earthiness that was hard to pin down and which resembled mushrooms. The wine finished smoothly, with a medium to long presence on the palate.

Food Pairing:
The classic pinot or burgundy match applies here. Go fowl. Try a roasted chicken with lemon and thyme or grilled quail with wilted cabbage slaw.

Overall Score: 8

How much?: $32.00

I purchased my bottle at one of my local San Francisco stores, The Wine Club.

Posted by: Alder on March 4, 2004 9:11 AM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews

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Comments (2)

enochchoi wrote:

03.04.04 at 1:11 PM

had this at the 2002 MacArthur Park Red Cross benefit, but it was missing from the 2003 benefit ;( It was my fav pinot from the '02 benefit!

BTW, would you please publish a full feed? that is to say, the index.xml syndication file only includes the first 20 words of a post. It would save readers time if you published the whole post in your xml file.

Alder wrote:

05.08.04 at 9:42 PM

Starting this month, Domain Drouhin is now open for visitors (heretofore only accessible to wine industry insiders.)

Here's the start of the article in Wine Spectator:

"Domaine Drouhin Oregon has been making Pinot Noir since 1988, and it even built an architecturally distinctive winery in the midst of its hillside vineyard in Willamette Valley. But it has never had a tasting room for the public, until now. Starting on May 26, Drouhin's new tasting room will be open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m."

Read the full story.