Winemaker Notes
The single non-local vineyard, Hanspeter is super stoked by the site, which is a half-hour away on the lower hills of the Black Forest, on limestone layered with iron-rich clay, in a strikingly high elevation of almost 2,000 feet.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Ziereisen's 2014 Talrain is a pure Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) from a basin 500 meters above sea level where the vines root in Jurassic limestone soils with iron-rich loam and are surrounded by forest. Aged 20 months in small oak barrels, the inaugural 2014 shows warm and ripe fruit intertwined with nougat flavors on the deep, seamless, very elegant and refined nose. Silly, fresh and very elegant on the palate, this is a fresh and vital as well as full-bodied and concentrated Pinot with remarkably fine tannins and a long and refreshingly pure and chalky finish with the vitality of the iron compounds. This is a remarkably fine new entry in the Ziereisen portfolio. I am curious about this new style and look forward to following it over the coming years. It's perhaps one of Ziereisen's most elegant, refined and probably also complete Pinot Noirs whose length is so finessed and mineral that you will think the best is yet to come. Very long and compact yet pure and fresh.
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.”
