Pinot 115

Posted on September 4th on Facebook - Stephen Body September 2, 2019 WELL, IT FINALLY HAPPENED...for well over 25 years - pretty much the entire time I've worked in and around the wine biz - know-it-all friends and associates of mine have said "Oh, one day, you'll come around to Burgundy and Pinot Noir. Everybody does, sooner or later." Here I am, 25+ years along and I am no closer to The Adoration of The Pinot than I was in the mid-90s. I HAD never even tasted ONE Pinot Noir that made me jolt upright and say, "Wow!"...until the week of July 4th, when we spent a lovely five days on Vancouver Island. On the fourth day, we drove over to Comox, right next door to our base camp in Courtenay, and 40 Knots Winery, where winemaker #LayneCraig was incredibly generous with his time and views on running an estate winery where many wine folks think grapes shouldn't grow. As our last pour in a VERY surprising tasting, Layne poured us his estate-grown Pinot, aged in an imported Italian amphora. It was eye-opening, to say the least and we left with two bottles - just of the Pinot! Altogether, we left with over $400 US of wine - and a TON of respect for 40 Knots. This wine completely changed the way I look at Pinot Noir. It deftly avoids the irritating arguments about Too Big California and stinky Burgundy, and wimpy Oregon, sporting a firm medium body with precise, assertive fruit, lovely alluvial minerals, grace notes galore, and an extravagant finish that suggests teaberries and wildflowers. It was nowhere near as insubstantial and "feminine" as the Oregonian ideal of the 60s through the 00s, nowhere near as perfumey and boisterous as an Eden Valley or Sonoma Pinot, and nowhere hear as redolent of barnyard, wet hay, and leather as many of the great Burgundies. I can't pretend to know what climatic, environmental, or soil characteristics of Vancouver Island combined to produce this baffling stuff (but I plan to find out) 40 Knots Pinot Noir 115 Amphora 2017: 96 Points