High QPR Pinot Noir #2! (Why Pinot Noir can be expensive, why you should care about Pinot Noir, a 9 point wine rating!)

Show Notes

Episode 72: High QPR Pinot Noir #2!  00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair! 

Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode we learn about, taste and give our honest review of three wines that are reasonably priced - meaning under $20 each -  and should be easy for you to find (although this week we are stretching the price boundary just a touch!). And, our podcast is made for people like us - people who love wine, but want to learn more about wine, find new wines to explore, and just feel more confident when we talk about and order wines. So, if that sounds like you, you are in the right place - and, we invite you to taste these wines or a Pinot Noir from your stash along with us while you listen as a fun way to participate in the podcast! And we are proud to say that we are officially recommended by the editors of Decanter Magazine from their October issue, who call us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining. 

Ok, Carmela, we are back to do a second episode in a series we will return to periodically called High QPR Pinot Noir, and we do this for Pinot Noir because it is a wine varietal that we love. Now, you may be asking yourself what is high QPR?

As we discussed in our first episode of this series, QPR stands for quality to price ratio, and so a high QPR means that, for the price, this thing - in our case a wine - has a quality that outweighs its price. And, as we also mentioned last time, one person’s high QPR is not necessarily another person’s QPR when it comes to things like cars or shoes or wine. 

Now, for us, the P in the QPR ratio is relatively fixed, and I say relatively because usually we try to stick to wines under $20, but in this episode, and we will do this periodically, we have a wine that costs more than $20. Not a lot over $20, but still more than $20. And, we will need to do that sometimes because, let’s face it, inflation is a thing, and especially for Pinot Noirs, $20 is a tough barrier to meet. 

And high QPR for wine is kind of the theme of this podcast. We want to help you find wines that are delicious and fun and that you can find easily, AND that don’t break the bank. So, you could say that high QPR wines is sort of why we do this podcast. Finding great wines around $20 has long been my personal objective when it comes to wine - because it is a price for wine that I feel does not make it too precious - and you won’t yell at me for buying, Carmela. You don’t feel bad when you pop open a $20 bottle of wine, especially if people are digging it!

So, that is why you are probably asking yourself the other question which is why are we focusing on high QPR Pinot Noirs and not other wines? Well, for two reasons. First and foremost, we really like Pinot Noir, but second, Pinot Noir is one of the most expensive wines in the world - and we’ll talk more about that in a couple of minutes. 

But for now, let’s just stick to why we love Pinot Noir. Ok Carmela? Is that ok with you? And, Pinot Noir is not a wine that I knew very well until probably the last 10 years, and Pinot Noir is definitely not everyone’s favorite red wine. But why do you think I love Pinot Noir, Carmela - and it probably mirrors some of the reasons you like it, too?

• The fruit flavors are what I would call bright and lively. I often describe Pinot Noir as having a tart or ripe cherry flavor, almost like cherry candy or cherry licorice. However, I will say that sometimes you will find Pinot Noir, especially when it is made in warmer or hotter climate areas, to be less bright and more Cabernet like, which I personally do not love.
• It also has depth and complexity, but is not generally overpowered by oak. I really don’t love super oaked wines, so that is a thing for me. But, in addition, Pinot Noir has some really pleasurable secondary flavors. When it is done well, Pinot Noir will open up in your mouth as you let it sit there and swim around. 
• It goes really well with food. It tends to be a higher acid wine, and it is generally medium bodied, which means that it will not overpower the food it is paired with. And it is a very versatile wine, because it can pair with red meats and white meats, vegetarian dishes, spicy dishes, and even some fish. It handles lots of different cuisines well, too. And, we say this all the time - like all good Italians, we consider wine to be the fifth food group, so a great wine should pair well with food. 

But don’t just take our word for it - if you have not tried a lot of Pinot Noirs, you can find good ones that are reasonably priced, and you can also find Pinots that are among the most expensive wines in the world when they come from Burgundy. We just invite you, too, to drink along with us - if you can find these wines that we are trying today, or if you have some Pinot that you can sip on while you listen. 

So, I think it’s time to find out more about why Pinot Noir can be so damn expensive, and what makes it such a popular wine especially among wine nerds and wine snobs and wine geeks like us . . . 

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug, right Carmela? First, we want to start by saying THANK YOU for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you have not had the chance to do so yet, now would be an awesome time to subscribe to our podcast  - it is a free way to support us, and then you never have to miss a show!  - and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already - we really really appreciate it! 

And, another great way to support us for FREE is to leave a nice rating and review on our website or on Apple Podcasts or other podcast service so we can continue to grow our listeners.

You can also follow us and see fun pictures of the wines we are tasting and trying today on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, and you can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com with any questions or ideas you have.

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast - and this week we want you to tell anyone who wants to love Pinot Noir but has never been able to figure out why they don’t love it. Because we’ll make them love it!

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://trulyexperiences.com/blog/pinot-noir/ 
• https://sanfranciscowineschool.com/blogs/blog/19214595-why-somms-love-pinot-noir

Topic: Why should I care about Pinot Noir? 10:08

I will admit that some people just don’t get Pinot Noir. They don’t understand what all the hubbub is about Pinot Noir. And there are a few reasons for it - sometimes, it’s just because they don’t like the Pinot Noir style of wine which, as we said, is a lighter style of red. But, from my perspective, I think it is more that there is a lot of crap out there that is made under the name of Pinot Noir that just doesn’t thrill people, and doesn’t really capture the essence of a Pinot Noir. Sometimes these wines try to be more Cabernet-like, and that is just not going to work with a Pinot. What you end up with is a wine that is kind of neither Pinot or Cab. And sometimes they are just cheaply made Pinots that are like, I don’t know how to explain it - blah. 

But, we want to tell you why you should care about Pinot Noir. And by that I mean classic Pinot Noir. 

First, Pinot Noir is one of the world’s great wines, some might call it the greatest of all wines, and it comes from one of the worlds most famous - and some would say the most famous - wine regions, and that is Burgundy in France. What is kind of unique about red Burgundy wine is that it is almost exclusively 100% Pinot Noir, which is different from a lot of French wines which tend to be blended. 

For example, the next most famous red wine region in France is Bordeaux. But Bordeaux wines are usually a blend of wines that includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot among others. 

Probably the most famous wine in Burgundy is Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and these wines are so precious and so sought after that some people just collect them. In fact, the vineyards of Romanée-Conti are on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. There are eight different wines produced by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti that come from eight different plots that are each considered Grand Cru, which is the best of the best of French wine, and for some of the more famous plots, wines can be $20,000 or more right out of the gate. Inexpensive wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti can be found at the low, low price of $2,500. If you are lucky. And if you can actually find them. 

And they don’t make a lot of wine. One of the reasons it is so expensive, too, is because it is so scarce. They make only about 6,000 to 8,000 cases a year, and there are even years when they won’t make any wine if they don’t think the wine is going to be good enough. 

These are wines that are meant to age, too. You would not open great Burgundy unless it was at least 15-20 years old, and some last for decades longer. If you ever get to try a DRC wine, as it is affectionately known, you are among the most lucky people in the world. And probably among the most wealthy, and hey, if you are and you are listening to the podcast, feel free to reach out and learn how you can be a sponsor and share your wine with us! But I digress.

Now, we would like to believe that you don’t have to spend $20,000 to get a good Pinot Noir. I am not going to tell you that you can spend $20 and get anything close to the quality of a real French Burgundy Grand Cru, but you can find really good Pinot Noirs in lots of places all over the world. For instance, I love Domaine de la Cote which is a California Pinot. It is not cheap by any means, but it is much less expensive than a high quality Burgundy. But that wine will never make it onto our podcast because, even though I would consider it to be a high QPR wine, it is not a reasonably priced wine. So there. 

Some other reasons why Pinot Noir is so well regarded and so popular is because it is considered a kind of a rare wine. Not that it is hard to find Pinot Noir per se, but because it is harder to grow and harder to make well than wines like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. 

For instance, Pinot Noir tends to be a “low yield” grape, meaning that compared to other grapes, the number of grapes per cluster and the size of the grapes is small. It also tends to be finicky - it is a thin skinned grape that is more sensitive to weather than most other wine grapes, and it also only grows in certain types of soil. So, if you are a winemaker, you have to be really committed to growing and making Pinot Noir because it can be a pain. 

But that’s also what makes it so special. And that’s why we made this series of episodes so we could hopefully help you find some of these less expensive but still very good Pinot Noir wines. 

So, on that note, I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific Pinot Noirs we are drinking today. Whaddya say?

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://bestofwines.com/blog/10-things-to-know-about-domaine-de-la-romanee-conti/ 
• https://www.scienceofcooking.com/food-and-wine/pinot-noir.htm 
• https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2021/08/the-worlds-most-expensive-pinot-noirs 

High QPR Pinot Noir Wines We Chose for This Episode 17:55

Usually, all of the wines we would have chosen for this episode would be under $20, but this time around, because finding a good high QPR Pinot Noir under $20 is not easy, one of our wines is more than $20 (and is incidentally a wine I had recently and really liked and wanted to put on the podcast), but all three of them together are less than $60, so, on average the wines meet that $20 threshold, and in fact for this episode the average price is about $18.50, so I feel like that works sort of in our rules. And all of them should be relatively easy to find because we got them all from wine.com, so if you can get delivery from wine.com, you can find these wines.

All of these wines are also well rated by professional raters, including Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, and Wilfred Wong from wine.com. And this is part of the criteria I use when I am selecting these wines - I want to make sure they have some decent ratings from reputable wine reviewers other than James Suckling, who you know, if you listen to our podcast regularly, I think is a hack.

The first wine we are trying is actually our least expensive wine, and it comes from France, called Bouchard Aine & Fils Heritage du Conseiller Pinot Noir and it has some good 89 ratings from Wine Enthusiast and Wilfred Wong. I wanted to see if we could bring in a Pinot Noir from France because that is the homeland for the grape, and so it was super exciting to find one that was under $11 and had good ratings.

The winery explains that they age the wine for 4 months, one month of which is on wood, and the last 3 in stainless steel tanks, so I am expecting this to be a pretty fresh and vibrant Pinot Noir that should likely be consumed while it is still pretty young. Because of the lack of oak aging, and the fact that it is a screw cap, I am just not convinced it will age super well. But that’s ok! A lot of the time, we just want to buy a wine and crack it open and not wait forever!

One interesting thing about this wine is that the winery suggests serving it at about 61 degrees fahrenheit or about 16 degrees celsius which is not only very exact, but is also just under room temperature and just a bit above cellar temperature. So, not quite chilled, but not room temperature either. 

The next wine is called Montinore Estate Red Cap Pinot Noir, and this one snuck in under $20 because it was on sale - which is ok with us! This wine comes from the Willamette Valley of Oregon, which is considered by many to be one of the best Pinot Noir growing and producing areas in the United States, and is actually on the same latitude as Burgundy, France, and has a similar climate.  And, by the by, I did see this when we went to Costco this last weekend and I saw it for an even cheaper price than what I got it for at wine.com!

This wine received a 92 rating from James Suckling, so who cares, BUT it got a 90 rating from Wine Spectator, who I usually trust, AND they called it one of their top 10 Value Wines of 2022. So, if there is a candidate on paper for a high QPR Pinot Noir, especially when it is on sale, this is the one!

This wine also a symbol on it called LIVE Certified Sustainable, and LIVE is a Pacific Northwest located non-profit that gives certification for environmentally and socially responsible wine growing - which includes not only their farming, but things like labor practices and packaging as well - which we think is pretty cool!

The last wine we are trying is the one that went over our $20 threshold - but just barely over - and when I tasted it, I thought “this is a good wine” and knew that I wanted to review it on our podcast. Do you remember where we had this wine? When we went to Jason and Lori Lewis’ son Nate’s bar mitzvah, they were serving this wine, and I was enamored from the get go.

The wine is called BloodRoot Pinot Noir and comes from Sonoma County in California. It is a blend of different Pinot Noir grapes from 15 different cool climate vineyards (I like cool climate wines) in Sonoma County, which is one of the reasons why they can produce a pretty good Pinot Noir at a reasonable price, because single vineyard wines tend to be a bit more expensive. 

This wine is aged for 18 months in French oak, 20% of which is new, so this will have some nice tannins, but because it is French oak, will be a bit more mellow. They also use sustainable farming practices, which is something we are seeing more and more in wine since it means a more carefully grown grape and crafted wine. 

I love this that I found out about the wine - listen to this, Carmela: BloodRoot is a secret collaboration between acclaimed winemakers. This group has deep contacts and vineyard sourcing which they knew they would create great wines for relatively modest prices. This group is also masterful at creating blends. They want to be anonymous because they have other projects where their wines sell for 4-5X as much money with scores from critics in the 95-100 point range.

Again, that feels like the perfect target for a high QPR Pinot Noir. And, evidently the 2021 that we are drinking is just their 4th release of the wine, so it will be fun to see how this one grows over time. 

But, I think that is enough information - let’s get to drinking! We’ll take a quick break and be right back. And, if you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us!


ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://www.bouchard-aine.fr/en/our-wines.r-2/our-range-of-wines.r-12/heritage-du-conseiller-pinot-noir.v-5856.html?valid_legal=1
• https://www.montinore.com/all-wines/2019-red-cap-pinot-noir
• https://livecertified.org/sites/default/files/LIVE%20Media%20Primer%202020.pdf
• https://www.bloodrootwines.com/product/2021-BloodRoot-Sonoma-County-Pinot-Noir
•  https://dandm.com/bloodroot-2021-sonoma-county-pinot-noir.html 
• https://www.wine.com/product/bloodroot-pinot-noir-2021/1058539 
• https://www.jsfashionista.com/bloodroot-wines-hottest-new-healdsburg-tasting-room/ 

High QPR Pinot Noir Wine Pairing Tasting and Reviews 26:03

Wine: Bouchard Aine & Fils Heritage du Conseiller Pinot Noir (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: France 
Producer: Bouchard Aine & Fils
Year: 2020
Price: $10.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 14%
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Professional Rating: WW 89, WE 89

What we tasted and smelled in this Pinot Noir:

• On the nose: Earth, smoke, matchstick, grass, mushroom, liquored cherry, cherry cordial, chocolate
• In the mouth: Earth, tart,  soil, tart plum, cranberry, crunchy, pomegranate, raspberry

Food to pair with this Pinot Noir: Better with food, pork tenderloin, potatoes, spicy asian food, grilled and tomato soup, baked brie, needs warm foods. Fall wine, Thanksgiving wine. Au gratin.
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Rating: 

• Joe: 6/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Wine: Montinore Estate Red Cap Pinot Noir (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: Oregon, Willamette Valley
Producer: Montinore Estate 
Year: 2019
Price: $19.99 (was $30, but on sale)
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 13.2%
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Professional Rating: JS 92, WS 90, top 10 Value Wines of 2022

What we tasted and smelled in this Pinot Noir:

• On the nose: Funky, musty, eathy, not a lot of fruit, mushroom, some black fruit
• In the mouth: Better flavor than smell, astringent, not a long finish, not a lot of fruit, kind of basic for a Pinot, cherry at the front, but then becomes very tannic and astringent. Dried herbs. Tarragon. Wood. Smoke, almost charred. Smoke tainted? Potpourri smell. 

Food to pair with this Pinot Noir: Needs food. Red meat, charcuterie, charred or grilled meat, cheeseburger, grilled vegetables


Rating: 

• Joe: 6/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Wine: BloodRoot Pinot Noir (Click here to find this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: California, Sonoma County
Producer: BloodRoot
Year: 2021
Price: $24.99
Retailer: wine.com
Alcohol: 13.4%
Grapes: Pinot Noir
Professional Rating: WW 92

What we tasted and smelled in this Pinot Noir:

• On the nose: Chery, cooked cherry, some earth, some wood, Australian red licorice, 
• In the mouth: Cherry, nice finish, a kiss of oak, good balance, vanilla, smooth, nice acidity

Food to pair with this Pinot Noir: Pasta, chicken, filet mignon, medium rare, grilled flank, bolognese, puttanesca, pizza, very versatile 


Rating: 

• Joe: 9/10
• Carmela: 8/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: BloodRoot Pinot Noir
• Joe: BloodRoot Pinot Noir

Taste profiles expected from Pinot Noir   45:11

• General - Wine Folly
  • Cherry, raspberry, clove, mushroom, vanilla
  • France: Mushroom, cranberry, plum sauce, pastille candy (gummy candy or lozenges), hibiscus
  • Central Coast CA: Raspberry sauce, plum, gun smoke, vanilla, allspice
  • Cooler climates: tart red fruit; warmer climates: blackberry, black cherry, black currant
• Bouchard
  • Winery: Delicate aromas of cherry and coffee with subtly integrated toasted notes. Flavors of chocolate are emphasized by a hint of menthol, lying on silky tannins. The finish is long with assorted fruit flavours and a subtle touch of oak.
  • WW: This wine exhibits aromas and flavors of red and blue fruits with a hint of spice.
  • WE: Cherry, pomegranate, cranberry and bramble aromas leap from the glass. This wine offers tart acid and juicy cranberry and pomegranate up front, joined with gentle pepper and spice tones on the mid palate. Tannic grip holds until a final wash of acidity.
• Montinore
  • Winery: Bing cherry, red plum, stewed fruit and a whiff of geranium introduce a mouthful of Marionberry, cherry and sundried tomato
  • JS: Richer and fuller with ripe-strawberry and orange-peel aromas and flavors. 
  • WS: Vibrant and snappy, with expressive sweet cherry blossom, cranberry and rose petal accents that finish on a crisp high note.
• BloodRoot
  • D&M: This is a bright light and quite pretty iteration with aromas of raspberry and bing cherry with a hit of oak, clove, and rhubarb. The palate is moderate in weight with good acid and a flavor set of red berry and spice
  • WW: This wine excels with aromas and flavors of dried herbs, spices, red cherries, and hints of oak

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 47:51

Ok, so, Carmela, it is just about time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - AND if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast AND also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast service - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

We would also love to hear from you about a wine you would like us to taste and review. You can, leave a message for us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, or you can just email us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com and tell us about a wine you are curious about, or curious what we think of it. And, follow us on Instagram so you can see pictures of all of these wines we are tasting and reviewing. 

And, next time you listen to an episode, drink along with us and see if you are tasting and experiencing the same things we are - it’s like a date night! And if you do that, we’d love to hear what you think!

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.