2019 Pinot Noir Passion
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Tasting notes
The Passion is Donatsch's Premier Cru equivalent. Also made from Burgundy clones, it sees 30% new oak. Martin Donatsch feels 2019 was a particularly elegant vintage for their reds, displaying classic red fruit and fine tannins, something that shines in this wine. The 2019 Passion Pinot Noir displays wonderful red fruit purity and peppery spice on the nose, with notes of cloves, earth and dried roses. Both nose and palate show superb concentration and structure, with a chiselled linearity and mineral complexity. With air, further layers of smoke and pot-pourri emerge, ever changing and pronounced with great aromatic purity and detail. On the palate too the precision and minerality are astounding, while still luxuriating in its resolved sumptuous tannins. (And the alcohol is just 13.5%.)
Critic scores
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Donatsch's 2019 Pinot Noir Passion is deep, pure, fresh and tangy on the dark and toasty, very characterful but elegant and cherry-charming nose that indicates perfect ripeness and coolish precision of coolish ripened fruit (forest berries from red to black) along with delicate pepper notes. Full-bodied, round and intense on the palate, this is a dense, silky-textured, finessed and elegant, quite substantial but most of all refreshing and highly stimulating Graubünden Pinot with concentrated, densely textured fruit structured by fine but firm tannins. The finish is intense, pure and clear and reveals good power, grip and tension. This is an impressive and very sustainable Pinot Noir with excellent aging potential, though it also drinks perfectly well today, if decanted for a day or two. Honestly, the 2019 is my favorite Passion Pinot out of the six I tasted for this report (2008, 2009, 2010, 2018, 2019 and 2020) since it transports the coolish terroir of the Bündner Herrschaft as well as the vintage perfectly well. 13.5% stated alcohol. Diam cork. Tasted in January 2022.