Arcane Cellars, Pinot Noir, 2007
We reviewed three wines from Arcane the other night, including two Pinot Gris's, and a Pinot Noir:
The first review investigated the first Pinot Gris that was sourced from Wheatland Vineyard, and the second reviewed the Pinot Gris Reserve. This one is the Pinot Noir review.
The nose was a light rose, carnation, white pepper, nutmeg and vanilla (but not sweet!). And over all that, and predominant: smoke! Denise described it irreverently (as she always does) as the smell of a honeymoon suite after a bad fight. Huh? She elaborated with: "you know, flowers and burnt". Okay!? (Luckily, not the honeymoon I remember).
The taste was strawberry and a little orange. Jason Silva (the vintner) instructed us to open this at least two hours prior to drinking. And this was around the 2 hour mark. A bit later -- like about 3 hours -- we got raspberry and a little vanilla. And then a bit later, Caleb was convinced it tasted like a McDonald's cherry pie. I was still getting smoke -- almost like a campfire. And Denise got caramel, or maybe burnt sugar. The finish was pretty quick. Mainly the finish was lingering cola. Sort of like a warm slurpy (in a good way).
The opinions were mixed -- similar to the situation we had with the Arcane Cab. Half the group liked it, half didn't so much. For Cheryl, she was getting flashes of sulfur -- "like the smell of a match". Though I didn't. She and Denise also found it overly acidic, saying it had that "wine bite". Towards the end of the night, Cheryl toned down her dislike a bit, saying that it was much less biting than it was earlier.
For Caleb and I, we both liked this wine. Certainly the wine started out fairly citrusy. But after a couple hours of decanting, most of that dissipated for us. We were left with a smoky, floral, cherry/raspberry goodness. Most importantly, the aroma was really fantastic. But the short finish turned off the women, apparently. Caleb and I joked that this was a "man's wine". So buy a bottle ... if you're a guy! Oh, and be sure to decant for a few hours first.
Cost:
Rating:
8.0