ROCO Private Stash Pinot noir 04
Wine Spectator 92 points"Polished and round. An open-textured Pinot, with blackberry, raspberry and cherry flavors on a pencil-thin bead of silky, refined tannins, lingering well. Drink now through 2014. 99 cases made." -HS
A Pinot expert's Pinot, Rollin Soles'(Argyle) personal vineyard, Wits End, provides the fruit for this Estate Pinot. Two Pinots are offered, this "Private Stash" being the wine he, until recently, only sold to family and friends.
Everything is just as it should be in this Pinot expert's wine - there's layered complexity of fruit, spice, acid, and tannins offering a constantly changing array of pleasing qualities, all essentially Pinot taken to its highest levels.
NoseScent is of sweet red raspberry, cherry, and currant, with tantalizing hints of toast, vanilla, and oak. FlavorsSweet red and black berry and cherry feature throughout the experience of tasting the wine. Layers of different flavors waft through the fruit, including different cherries, red and black raspberry, currant, sandalwood incense, sweet spices, hints of sweet tobacco, and toasted espresso bean. The wine has the quality of feeling like it expands in the mouth, and it's mouthfeel is voluptuous and velvety.
FinishAs the wine opens, it offers more and more complexity of flavors and scents. In the finish, there are hints of anise, intense black fruit and berries, and barrel spice.
First and foremost, this is a wine that screams "vineyard". It's clearly made from scrupulously perfect fruit, from a vineyard whose special qualities are understood and called for in the winemaking. Many of the most experienced winemakers say that Pinot noir is made in the vineyard...the trick is to not screw up what the fruit gives you. Rollin is clearly a master at determining the vineyard's special qualities and crafting a wine that emphasizes them.
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From the winery: He says, "Upon sampling our first bottle of the '04 Private Stash I found the wine aromas to be reminiscent of huckleberry leather, cardamom spice, and a tinge of granite followed by a bit of honeysuckle blossom at the very end. The texture was very creamy and yields in the mouth the very flavors that were revealed in the nose; huckleberry, spice, river gravel and paprika with a long juicy centered blackberry finish. The fruit component builds with time in the glass. Like a big chocolate layer cake iced in huckleberries and topped in rose petals." She says, "When I put the glass to my nose I immediately had visions of traveling the ancient spice routes. I got a big hit of cinnabar, nutmeg and dusty cobblestones. The flavors in the mouth followed suite with rich spices enhanced by deep blackberry. Throughout dinner the wine continued to open in the mouth and rendered ripe strawberry flavors, cinnamon, tumeric and a touch of clove. A rich, complex and bold glass of Pinot not afraid to be what it is."
