Me? When I find a wine I love, I remember the first place I had it. In the case of this 2009 Clos Pepe Vineyard Prodigal Pinot Noir, I was on the first outing with my husband, sans baby, since we became parents. It was meant to be a quick trip to Vinhus, my favorite cheese shop in Solvang where we were weekending a few days ago with our family, that turned into a short tasting at a nearby wine lounge with a decidedly date like feel. I felt like myself again!
But if you are interested in what was happening when this particular bottle was made, Wes Hagen the winemaker, actually made a blog post about it on Winemaker. It includes a recipe for Pinot Noir the Clos Pepe way.
"Growing perfect pinot noir is the real challenge, and then the focus in the winery is to allow that perfect fruit to express itself." -- Wes Hagan
On to the tasting notes! This Pinot has a ripe strawberry, cherry and honey nose, the embodiment of the Central Coast farmland, with perfectly balanced spice and acidity with just the right amount of complexity and silky texture to make this infinitely drinkable. We liked it so much we bought 4 bottles to gift to the enophiles in our lives.
The Prodigal line of wines, interestingly, is dedicated to making amazing Pinot Noirs. In fact, the slogan is "a wine fifty years in the making." Prodigal is named for the prodigal son, Stephen Russell, who studied Enology in the 60s only to leave the industry to pursue cancer research and return in 2001 to found Quinta Santa Rosa Vineyard and Prodigal Wines where he pursued his love of Pinot from the vines to the barrel.
The wine lounge serving this flight, Viking Garden Cellars, put the Prodigal up front in the tasting which could be either dumb or brilliant. Dumb because all the other offerings in the flight paled in comparison. Brilliant because a tipsy palate would likely not be able to appreciate the perfect little nuances of this fantastic Pinot Noir.
Bottles can be purchased at Viking Garden Cellars in Solvang, CA or Inside The Cellar in Santa Fe Springs, CA.
