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One day.  Over 100 of the best Pinot Noir makers on the West Coast.  One Wop with a wine glass.  Can you say “Pig in Shit”?

Picture yourself with a jar of viagra and 6 hours free access to Caligula’s #1 harem.

I was recently invited to attend Pinot on the River in Forestville, CA, which lies smack in the middle of California’s Pinot Mecca on the Russian River, with a winemaker friend of mine (who shall forever remain nameless so as not to sully his otherwise not-as-sullied reputation).  My role:  R&D.  Research and Drunkenness.  Infiltrate the ranks, seek out the finest of the finest, and pick their brains for inspiration and ideas.  And, in doing so, drink as much wine as is humanly possible without making too much of an ass of myself.

Next time I will bring a tape recorder, because things got pretty foggy by around 2:00PM.  But here’s what I remember…

First off, finding the finest needles in this decadent haystack was more work than I expected, partly due to the fact that I consider spitting when wine tasting to be Alcohol Abuse.  If one were to make a cursory pass through each winery in order to determine which wines one really wanted to taste thoroughly, one would have to drink at least 100 ounces of wine as a warmup. That’s a big hill o’ beans to climb before breakfast.  Believe me I tried, but quickly failed and, fortunately, redirected my efforts before it was too late.  My attack plan echoed the sentiment behind the following Venezuelan folk saying:

With a lot of patience and a little bit of spit, the elephant fucks the ant.

So here’s the plan that I formulated and painstakingly carried out:

1.  I hit my favorite wines first.  I call this the Control Group.  My Control Group consisted of Heart O’ The Mountain, MacPhail, Kosta Browne, Arista and Kanzler.  All wines I’ve had a lot of and like a whole lot.  Being relatively sober during this part of the day, I made sure to ask lots of questions, the answers to which I sort of remember.  These are all wineries I truly respect… and I felt honored to get to meet them and talk to the winemakers, so I wanted to play it straight at this stage of the game.  This meant putting on my Game Face and talking about tannins, barrel selection and pH.  Problem is, most of the Control Group were pouring more than one vintage… and who am I to say no?  So this made both the Game Face and Phase 2 (below) a tad more challenging.

2.  Next, I hit up what I call the The Word of Mouth Group.  These are wineries that J David and others have been telling me to try.  These consisted of Freeman, Gary Farrell, Hirsch, David Noye, Moshin and Joelle, among others.  By this time, my tastebuds were getting a little worked over, so I made sure to gorge on as much goat cheese and Aidell’s sausage as possible first.

3.  I avoided talking to any of the Control Group after I went through the Word of Mouth Group.

4.  I then proceeded to hit up anyone that looked interesting.  Find the guy standing there alone or with the craziest hat and hit him up for a taste.  I can’t remember shit about any of these, except that one guy was really funny.  This was probably the most entertaining part of the day.

5.  When all was shut down, I proceeded to mine sweep.  See, most of the wineries just left all their unfinished bottles on the tables after they left.  Have you seen the scene in Sideways where the guy drinks the spit bucket?  It’s like that, but without the spit.  Picture for a moment 22 bottles of the world’s best Pinot Noir sitting alone on a table, doomed to be poured out in the bushes.  What would you do?   I found it imperative to take one for the team and consume as much of this forsaken wine as possible.  Call it pity drinking.

Some notes:

By far the highlight of the day for me was meeting James MacPhail.  If you’ve read this site before, you’ll know that I am a huge fan of his wines and his winemaking style.  James makes really interesting, layered wines in a more natural old-world style.  He likes to load up his wines with blends of a whole bunch of different clones, ages in french oak barrels from varied forests and makers, and is a vigourous proponent of native yeast fermentation and native malolactic fermentation.  Wines with serious character.  He’s at the very top of his game and he didn’t seem to be afraid to share his methods and ideas with those who are eager to listen.  I told him I was a hobby winemaker and gluttonous wine enthusiast, and he gave me a great crash course on his winemaking philosophy.  Really nice guy.  His ‘06 Anderson Valley was great stuff, but the ‘06 Sonoma Coast curled my toes.  A really outstanding wine.

The biggest surprise of the day was probably Joelle or Arista.  Both are relatively new wineries making absolutely outstanding wine.  Joelle makes a bad-ass Pinot from Sleepy Hollow vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands, and another wicked one from La Encantada vineyard in Santa Barbara.  Both were really structured, layered and had well-balanced fruit and acidity.  More importantly, both of the Joelle wines mentioned showcased the unique terroir of those classic vineyards.

The Arista wines were just super rich and smooth.  They ruled in the mouth feel department.  Drinking the Arista Longbow Pinot is like having an angel piss on your tongue.

Heart O’ The Mountain also had a real winner in their 2006 Santa Cruz Mountains Estate Pinot Noir.  It’s a big, complex, spicy mountain-grown wine that shows the unique character of the Santa Cruz Mountain appellation.

Lynda Kanzler had a secret stash under the table, barrel sampled from her upcoming ‘07 vintage.  It was a knockout, even compared to Kanzler’s outstanding ‘06 release.  I could swear they put perfume in their wines, the nose is so yummy.

Probably the biggest let-down of the day was Kosta Browne.  Bear in mind that many of these wineries are family-run operations.  As such, the whole family is there pouring their outstanding wine from California’s premeire Pinot region.  The winemakers and/or owners are at just about every table, and they’re heavily invested in meeting people who like their wine.  Few of these people have any wine left to sell to the general public– it’s mostly allocation or mailing list stuff, just like Kosta Browne.  So these guys don’t **need** to be at this event, but most of them showed enthusiasm like they were bare-assed rookies.  Kosta Browne, on the other hand, sent their Director or Operations with 8 bottles of wine.  When asked, he said “even I’m on an allocation and 8 bottles is all I was allocated.”  And, unfortunately for the sunglassed, too cool, overdressed Kosta D of O, they were positioned right next to MacPhail.  Next to the rich, complex MacPhail wines, Kosta Browne’s tasted flabby, overripe and one-dimensional.  And the attitude doesn’t help.  Why would anyone buy Kosta Browne’s $58 Kanzler release when you can buy Kanzler’s own (better tasting) wine direct from the family that grew it for less money?  To me, it’s a no-brainer.

Well, enough of the negative.  At the end of the day, I took the following home with me:

A gnarly, ear-splitting, mind bending I’m-Never-Going-To-Drink-Again hangover.  And it was oh so worth it.  This was without exception, the most decadent wine drinking session I’ve ever had.  I’d have to estimate that each piss I took that day was worth about $100 in wine consumed.  And I’ve never met wines this good before.  There was not a bad winery in the place.  On the booze reviews sliding scale, I have to give this event a 200 point review, deducting only 1 point for the fact that it only happens once-a-year.  As Greg Brown has sang:

If I had known/I might have stopped (drinking) right then/it’s just as well we don’t know when/things will never be that good again…

(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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