High on acid and real sense of purpose at 2019 World of Pinot Noir
Landmark Westside Rd. barn passed by many a visitor to Russian River Valley's Middle Reach neighborhood My general impression of the 120 or so Pinot noirs that I managed to taste at the 2019 World of Pinot Noir – taking place at Santa Barbara’s The Ritz-Carlton Bacara this past March 1-2, 2019 – was: Still lots of full bodied wines, with alcohol levels typically in the 14.0%-14.5% range (with “outliers” at 13.0%-13.5%), despite the predominance of 2016s, a vintage that saw a return to more or less “normal” (whatever that is) conditions, after four consecutive years of drought. When elevated alcohol is a negative, of course, wines came across as harsh or hot, often with sweet, ripe cola-like or raisiny aromas, with little or no delineation or sense of delicacy one would hope to find in the varietal – and I tasted more than of few of them over the weekend. But at their finest, many of the fuller scaled Pinot noirs came across as plush and impeccably balanced, livel
