La Fenetre Le Bon Climat Vineyard Pinot Noir

Type: Dry red wine
Made With: Pinot Noir grapes out of Santa Barbara County.
Plays Well With: Grilled red meats – maybe a burger with some blue cheese.

Michael tasted this at the Pinot Days tasting in Santa Monica, California, earlier this year, and he caught something funny at the time.  It was a slight funk in the glass.

How to describe funk?  It’s one of those you know it when you taste it kinds of things.  Something not fruity or other pops up and it doesn’t smell or taste good.  Michael thinks this one could have been due to cork taint – aka “corked.”  Like a lot of things, cork taint comes in degrees.  You can get a bottle where it’s bloody obvious – the wine smells and tastes like moldy tennis shoes.  And you can get a bottle where there’s just a squidge of something not quite right.

Otherwise, the tannins – that dry feeling in your mouth – were still pretty intense, but the acidity was moderate.  There was also some nice berry character in the taste.  Obviously, this is a food friendly wine, and with 13.5 percent alcohol, it should settle in as the wine ages.

La Fenetre wines are available on their website, www.lafenetrewines.com.

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