Winemaker Notes
Nose: This spicy Pinot Noir shows lifted black cherry and plum fruit characters and an attractive pipe tobacco background.
Palate: Richly flavored, this medium-bodied wine has an impressive velvety mid palate and shows great structure with firm but balanced tannins, finishing with great length.
Serving and Cellaring Suggestions: The 1998 Padthaway Pinot Noir is an appealing complex style that will offer enjoyment now but will reward careful cellaring for up to four years. Best enjoyed with veal chops, char-grilled steak or duck with rich sauces.
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.”
