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Insider View: The World of Pinot Noir

food, wine & travel

Issue: May 2008

By: Steve Heimoff

Pinot Noir is my favorite red wine, so a wine event called The World of Pinot Noir (www.worldofpinotnoir.com) is bound to interest me.

The event, held annually in the Central Coast seaside village of Shell Beach, is now in its ninth year, and my magazine, Wine Enthusiast (www.winemag.com), is a sponsor. I’ve attended every year, and WOPN has become my favorite wine event.

A little background. Pinot Noir is a grape and wine, made famous here in the U.S. by the 2004 film Sideways. Pinot is also the grape the famous, expensive red wines of Burgundy are made from. A fine Pinot Noir is just the opposite of a red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah or Zinfandel. Where those are full-bodied and can be heavy and astringent, a great Pinot Noir is delicate and silky. But that doesn’t mean it’s shy on flavor. Pinot Noir provides power with weightlessness, which is about as magical a trick as a wine can perform.

The folks behind WOPN decided they wanted to have an annual event that would celebrate this great grape and wine. Every year, scores of superstar winemakers show up to pour their best stuff during the three-day event. The tastings are held under big white tents just up from the sandy dunes, and the weather is pretty dependable. This year, it was 75 degrees in early March.

WOPN also always has high-level seminars with master winemakers. The top one this year was a tasting of the wines of one of the best French Burgundies, Domaine Jacques-Fréderic Mugnier. The proprietor himself, affectionately known as Freddy, guided us through an appreciation of his wines, including three vintages of his Grand Cru Musigny, one of the greatest of all the vineyards in Burgundy.

These are not easy wines to appreciate. Where California Pinot Noirs tend to be front-loaded with ripe fruit, Freddy’s Musignys are typically made in a more traditional French manner, which is to say they are austere and tannic in their youth. They are wines that require a great deal of time to mature. Freddy’s comment about his 2003 Musigny was that it will need 30 to 40 years before it’s ready to drink!

If you’re into wine, you’ve probably heard the French word terroir. It refers most fundamentally to the growing conditions -- mainly climate and soil -- that affect the taste and structure of wine. More than any other grape variety, Pinot Noir is a mirror of its vineyard source, its terroir. Freddy applies only minimal intervention to his wines. He doesn’t oak them very much, and he doesn’t let the grapes get overripe. This light touch allows the terroir of the vineyard to shine through, which is something that Burgundy lovers appreciate.

California has come a long way over the last 10 or 15 years at producing high-quality Pinot Noir. California’s best Pinots come from the coolest growing regions, places from Santa Barbara north to Mendocino that get a foggy, windy maritime influence from the Pacific.

San Luis Obispo County, which is where Shell Beach is, has some of the best conditions for Pinot Noir in its two coastal valleys, Arroyo Grande Valley and Edna Valley. (See www.slowine.com.) Expect a SLO Pinot Noir to be succulent in black and red berry flavors, very dry, and crisp in acidity, with a long, spicy finish.

SLO is a great place to visit. There’s a wine trail that winds for miles along the back roads. Halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, SLO has a slower pace of life, although development has picked up considerably. I always stay at The Cliffs, in Shell Beach (www.cliffsresort.com), but there are many other fine resorts and B&Bs. The charming little village of Arroyo Grande provides ample opportunities for antique shoppers.

Steve Heimoff is the West Coast Editor of Wine Enthusiast Magazine and has written numerous articles on the wine industry. He is the author of New Classic Winemakers of California: Conversations with Steve Heimoff and A Wine Journey along the Russian River. Heimoff lives in Oakland, California.

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