2003 Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir Melville Vineyard
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Tasting notes
I liked the 2003 Pinot Noir Melville Vineyard earlier in life than I do now. It is one of the few Melville Pinot Noirs to become disjointed (bottle variation?), and currently reveals stemmy, herbal, earthy fruit as well as underbrush and autumnal/vegetative notes. It does not display any of the sweetness or complexity I had predicted a decade ago.
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Robert Parker
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
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Moderately saturated medium red. Slightly roasted aromas of strawberry, mocha and nutty oak, with a minty nuance and some exotic spices emerging with aeration. Sweet flavors of strawberry and mint. Much creamier in the middle palate than the Rancho Santa Rosa and Clos Pepe bottlings, which I found offputtingly stemmy (these wines would almost certainly have been better off destemmed), but there are still some green traces here. Finishes sweet and persistent. Incidentally, Brewer maintains that the Rancho Santa Rosa and Clos Pepe bottlings will come into harmony with bottle aging, but today they are tough going, with distinctly odd aromas. At Melville, in contrast, the 2003 pinot fruit was mostly destemmed-and better for it.