Kendall-Jackson Pinot Noir, 2004

Okay, so here goes on my first one. I've had many other wines in the past already, but no blog to track them. I've tried enough to know that I tend to drift towards Merlot for reds, and Pinot Grigio for whites, and White Zinfandel for the in-between (as far as color goes).

I have a bottle of Kendall-Jackson Pinot Noir here at home, so might as well as start with it. The label says, California 2004, and 'Vintner's Reserve'.
(photo 'borrowed' from the company site)


The back label says: As a family-owned winery, we go to extremes to ensure our wines are of the highest quality. This is demonstrated by our family's investment in a French stave mill. There, we search for the finest oak for our barrels. The timber is hand-split in this mill and the staves are dried for two to three years. This natural process cures the oak, slowly softening the tannins. Finally, we retain several French and American coopers to handcraft the barrels. As far as I know, we're the only American winery that fashions and sources its best barrels in this manner. (They totally lost me on the technical stuff on this one- will have to google some more...)

Our Pinot Noir delivers black cherry fruit with velvet tannins found in hillside grapes along the North Coast, raspberry notes from the Monterey region that intertwine with plum and spice from benchland vineyards on the Santa Barbara Coast. The wine was aged in a mix of new and older French and American oak barrels that impart a hint of cola, vanilla and cedar aromas.

Sounds to me like it might be a 'musty fruity' kind of thing, more than a 'fresh fruity' kind of flavor.

Price: $14 for 2005 bottle on company web site; I don't recall how much I spent on mine because I've had this bottle since last year sometime, bought at a local grocery store.

Company Links:
Kendall-Jackson main
Vintner's Reserve
Their page for wine Terminology
Their page for Wine and Food Pairings (text; great info!- though I will be drinking my wine by itself and not with any meal most of the time)
Their page for Wine and Food Pairings (handy chart- but too in-depth for someone like me- it's just neat to look at though)

Dang, there is so much to learn, and it's gonna take some repeating to actually grasp it all... but it's royally fun. :-)

So I opened it at room temp, it smelled both fruity and smoky from the bottle. It looked dark and dense in the glass. And tasted very vinegary! I stuck the glass in the fridge for awhile. Ick... too much of a bite as a "warm" wine at our room temp of 70 degrees! I've had some wines warm and they were okay, but this one is icky to me.

After it got chilled, I liked it ALOT better. Not like drinking colored vinegar anymore. Still quite a bite to it, but more fruity and smoky-tasting now, more like the way it smells. I think I prefer the more fruity flavors, as this one seems more woody and smoky than fruity. A little spicy, too.

I'm not sure why I keep trying out various brands of Pinot Noir... I still don't like it as much as I do any Merlots... but for some reason I keep trying them anyway (now and then- maybe it's my short-term memory). And each time, I still find myself preferring Merlot. So chalk another one up for the Merlot because this Pinot Noir doesn't compare!