Pinot Noir from Finland. Great to avoid.

Does the monopoly buyers want to buy spoofed stuff? Do they just like bad wine or are their taste buds calibrated to crap? I sincerely hope it is not the other obvious notion.

Let's look at these two recent new products just introduced here in Finland. They were obviously an attempt to respond to the voices of growing PN-audience. PN has to be juice from heavens because of such a scarcity. There is a sole retailer selling off-trade wine and it is state-run enterprise. Therefore it is no surprise that the suits remember their citizens have an appetite for substitute products (e.g. flour for bark, coffee to chicory). Our history is written to alternate from tyranny to famine to depression.

Someone is still living in the wartime I suppose. Why else would they present these products?

First one's description is only in Finnish but I'll translate it for my nonnative audience.It is described to be a light, supple yet rich in nuances. Aroma characteristics can be described as "hapokkaan marjainen" which if understood correctly in the context of the other characteristics means more or less like this: Raspberries and some strawberries dipped in acid finished with a dollop of spices. Why does this bother me? Well spices but only fermented and aged in steel then straight to bottles. But here comes the more worrying news. Alcohol at 13%, acids at 5,7g/l in tartaric, residual sugar 7g/l and extract upped to whopping 37g/l . Sounds so manipulated winemaking as possible. It screams it! Why the only Italian PN they sell here be spoofed? And why do they buy Italian PN, well now they are searching for the future release a good quality PN from Spain which is what Spaniards are known for internationally or not.

The second product they are offering to the fans of PN comes from Germany. Great! Spätburgunder is great! I have a huge appetite for stuff from the better producers which there are sadly only handful but in growing thankfully! I've never heard of this producer, but what strikes me is the description of the vinification this time. The vintage is 2009. Today is 25th February so we would have to go 17-18 months to participate to the picking. They say this did age 15 months in french oak barrels from which 70% new and after that 12 months of bottle aging before release. What? Can you really trust the descriptions if you can say whatever you like in there? I highly doubt it saw even french oak or maybe in powder form. And I just checked they have the same descriptions in Swedish so it cannot be miswritten.

I have not tried either of these two wines. I believe it was money well spent.

Incapability of Impartiality and Irancy

I'm opinionated to like what I buy. If I served a 20-year-old Pomerol from my own cellar, can I safely it's in ok condition. I'm confident that I'll be able to admit that the bottle served is cork tainted or that it wasn't the perfect example of the wine but the brettanomyces characteristics or problems caused by heat exposure are too much for me to admit when I'm having such a precious wine.

I believe that the senses are most open when you're tasting blind. If sense someone serves you something special, are you capable of saying your honest feelings without adding a little bit of make up.

Anyways, couple nights ago I had a blast! Opened a completely new stuff for me. A pinot noir from Bourgogne from 2007. Ok. I admit it sucks if that's my idea of new next level stuff... But this thing was a beauty. It had so much of the good things I like in my young pinot.

Shiny pretty color but maybe not filtered. The color doesn't matter in pinot noir. The crucial point concerns about fining and filtering your wine. When undone it can mean that brett dominates if something happened, like the season was rainy or old oak is used in vinification. But brett doesn't mean it's a fault, for example seek the famous Chateau Musar from Lebanon.

The aromas and flavors of flowers and cool red berries that are ripe and therefore lightly sweet. Which is balanced by the intense acidity that is zesty but thoroughly integrated with the fruit. Kind of like yin yang. Also some oak aromas that can be obtained from pièces vieux and some vegetal flavors from leaving some stems balanced with low tannin level of pure silk. Pure balance the whole wine.

Ok, I'm biased. I like coolness (read: not overripe) in my wine but this can still mean almost every northern pinot noir meant to drunk young (or old). So what was it that made this so special and new?

The striking minerality! Only from Kimmeridgian chalk! The chablisity!

"Red Chablis"

Irancy.

Irancy and the 2 other communes that make the AOC Irancy is Chablis' close Southwestern neighbor, distance less than 20km. Same kimmeridgian characteristics that give Chablis the famous minerality are found here.

The third red wine grape in Bourgogne can be used up to 10% in AOC Irancy pinot noir must be rest. This was pure pinot noir. AOC Irancy is relatively new area found at the 1999. Before the red wines could be Bourgogne Irancy labeled. For more information check this or McDuff's blog

Seems like the most the Irancy I know of is being made by famous Chablis vignerons like Vincent Dauvissat and Clotilde Davenne (17 years in Brocard now focusing to her own 8.5ha)

Next up: the third grape variety. 100% César. 

Naturally milky wine or not.

What a difference does a color make in wine! A hazy or milky red wine cannot be perceived as tasty as bright wine or can it? If the color is not bright, I might have a strong feeling that there might be something wrong especially if it's the first time I'm tasting it. The non-filtered or/and non-fined wines might behave that way I have recently learned.

I can imagine how many riesling producers lose their good night's sleep over the worrying of the potassium bitartrate crystals appearing in wine. Couple of weeks ago I had a '98 Santenay from Bourgogne where one bottle was bright but slightly out of condition and another one milky and more expressing nose but not giving everything I'd hoped an aged wine to give. In the end I concluded error on both of them or was it?

Last week I found milk in my red Bourgogne again. This time smelling like manure. It was a lovely rustic wine. I understand that the haziness could come from hands-off-style vinification. Weird. Does the real wine mean more non bright wines? I need to try the third wine Naudin-Ferrand Bourgogne '07 again.  Waiting how it will show itself me this time.