Clos Pepe Pinot Noir "grape" Tasting

Sunday, August 12, 2012

I invited 7 people to attend a wine tasting at my "casa"  today. I provided all the wine and did ask for appetizers to be brought as I had no plans on cooking dinner. Of course I had to pick out one of the hottest days of the year so far. But with all the doors, even the front door and windows open, the fans moving the air it was semi comfortable

I am a big fan of Clos Pepe and have been buying their wines for 11 years now.

I had 2004, 2005 and 2006 bottles of Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinot Noir open. The wineries  were Clos Pepe, Loring, AP Vin and Arcadian. I also had 2008 & 2009 Clos Pepe Chardonnay to start the tasting with.

After several hours of back and forth we came to the conclusion that Clos Pepe grows  damm good Pinot grapes. It was interesting to see the different styles of wine making and also the difference in the years with the same winemaker. Brian Loring seemed to change between 2004 and 2005. His 2006 was almost identical to the 2005

We had a split decision on the best of the lot. 4 people voted the 2004 Loring best and 4 people thought the 2005 Clos Pepe was best. We all felt that the 2005 Arcadian was the least favorite. In passing this information on to Wes the winemaker at Clos Pepe he was surprised at our take on the Arcadian. He said he had heard a lot of really good comments on this particular wine.

So on a few months or perhaps after the first of the year I will again host another tasting. It will be 2007, 2008 & 2009 Clos Pepe vineyard Pinot Noir grape. We  have a different mix of people as I could not accommodate everyone at this tasting that I wanted to. My criteria for the guest list was people that buy Clos Pepe either from me or the winery = no sense in wasting the wine on people who don't. Because if they don't but they either don't like it or are too cheap to spend the money.