St. Innocent Momtazi Pinot Noir 2008
-
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine has a distinctly different density compared to other St. Innocent offerings and reflects its unique McMinnville terroir. The best analogy I can offer is to imagine having tasted all of Burgundy except for Nuits-Saint-Georges. Then you taste Nuits-Saint-Georges and respond that this is not Burgundy. But of course it is, in fact it is the geographic center of Burgundy, yet is somehow completely different. This is how Momtazi and the McMinnville AVA fits into the profile of Oregon's Willamette Valley.
This is a complex wine that reflects the heat of the afternoon sun, the cool, windy evenings, and the rustic soils of the McMinnville hills while retaining the dark beauty of its intense, ripe fruit. It is aromatically complex with layers of blue and black fruit, Indian spices, coffee hints, and pepper. In the mouth these complex aromas are reflected along with a "sauvage" sense of wildness. Texturally layered, its flavors vary in intensity and quality over your tongue and palate. Ample ripe tannins balance with its acidity into a finish that integrates both its dark, wild fruit and its exotic spices.
Serve with braised meats, stews, sausages, or cassoulet. It can be enjoyed in its youth after decanting for two hours or more and will develop over a decade.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2008 Pinot Noir Momtazi Vineyard comes from a cool site in McMinnville that is often difficult to ripen but not in this stellar vintage. It gives up dark fruit aromas along with earth and mineral notes (but no green character). Savory, dense, and full of flavor, this is a rare Willamette Pinot with a "sauvage" character more often seen in Burgundy. It will be at its best from 2012 to 2020.
Other Vintages
2019-
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Spectator
-
James
Suckling
-
James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker
-
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine &
Spirits -
Wine
Spectator -
James
Suckling
-
Robert
Parker
St. Innocent produces small lot, handmade wines: seven single vineyard Pinot noirs and a blended Pinot noir called the Villages Cuvée, two Chardonnay from Dijon clone plantings, two Pinot gris, and a Pinot blanc.
The philosophy behind the winemaking at St Innocent is that the function of wine is to complement and extend the pleasure of a meal. The characteristics of a wine should enhance different food and flavor combinations - this interaction amplifies the pleasure of a meal. To this end, St. Innocent wines tend toward higher acid levels, and more diverse and balanced flavors.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Stretching southwest from the city of McMinnville, the AVA with the same name covers about 40,000 acres across 20 miles until it meets the Van Duzer Corridor. This corridor is the only break in the Coast Range whose gap allows the cool Pacific Ocean air to flow eastward into the Willamette Valley.
The Pacific's moderating winds hit McMinnville’s south and southeast facing slopes where cool-climate varieties—namely Pinot noir and Pinot blanc thrive on ridges at between 200 to 1,000 feet in elevation.
Soils here are primarily uplifted marine sedimentary loam and silt, with alluvial formations; McMinnville receives less rainfall than its neighbors to the east because it is situated in the rain shadow of the Coast Range.