One of the things I’ve been impressed with in my experience with this producer is the ability to get it ripe when it needs to be and avoid some of that heaviness when it doesn’t need it. And let’s get an oft-alleged place-mark OFF the table: alcohol level has NOTHING to do with ‘natural wine’. Typically, ABV is trotted out in low-intervention wines as litmus to their standings in that category, but the two are completely un-related. If you understand wine-making, this is obvious, but the consumer has been trained otherwise. If you want examples of COMPLETELY-FUZZY wines over 15-oh, I can give them to you. This wine is a prime example: headed into 8, thick, delicious, and aging gorgeously: all while easily carrying the banner of some of the most natural wines produced in California.
Black and thick in the glass: no amber or pinkish clarity at all. Even the rim is a grainy black-ruby where it finally–begrudgingly–goes to clear. Soiled floral and decadent cherry fill the nose, a pure savory-spit patina of Pinot pushing those glorious nuances exemplifying the variety into orbit. Musty graphite and moldy earth and match-head sully the ridiculous berry, all going in a direction quite surprising. Upon release, these are grainy, virile, thin beauties, probably a difficult sell to even pinot-freaks. But with age–and I have experienced this twice now in as many weeks–they turn to something shockingly dense, flush with concentrated beauty impossible for even the weakest fan of Pinot to not sway under in ways I’m not sure even the makers of this wine expected or intended. But here we are.
Supple and rich in the mouth, your pinot-dreams coming alive along lines many producers 3X the price from blingy AVA’s and hallowed labels fail to deliver. The cherry so delicious, acid clinging to every pore, but that smoky-earth dearth of chubbiness flies in the face of this wine’s obvious chubbiness. Piquant vegetal rile things up, NOWHERE are signs of fatigue or fade far into bitter tannin framing the delicate berry, stunning minerality and ridiculous ripeness. I know nobody’s gonna age these things–but you SHOULD. This wine is stupid-good.
2015 DEUX PUNX Pinot Noir Elk Prairie Vyd Humbolt Co. 14.4
Stephen McConnell 