Another preview tasting to our Oregon #WBC12 wine adventure, Today’s Selection is an Oregon Pinot Noir: http://www.brookswine.com.
Intent on taking a fresh look at Oregon Pinot Noir, I went to our local Binny’s yesterday and asked for help in making a selection in the $20 to $30 range. The wine guy went straight to Brooks. He said it’s far and above any other Oregon PN at that price. The winery also has quite a story. The founder, Jimi Brooks, died young and suddenly in 2004 leaving his sister, who knew nothing about wine and the wine business, to manage the winery and work to make Jimi’s wine dream a reality. It appears that she has well-exceeded that goal….President Obama served a Brooks wine at his first state dinner in 2009. Hopefully, the wine didn’t get overshadowed by those white trash White House dinner crashers everybody got so excited about!
100% Pinot Noir f
rom multiple areas in Willamette Valley: Muska 32%, Momtazi 30%, Willakia 24%, Dukes 10%, Sunny Mtn 4%
13.7% alcohol by volume
1,250 cases produced
Enjoy the Journey Wine Rating: First Base
This is a really good Pinot Noir, not just a really good Oregon Pinot Noir. Lots of dark fruit…strawberry and cherry especially. Well balanced, earthy, and has a strong finish.
We drank it with a farmers’ market Wisconsin cheese we purchased earlier in the day, a blend of cream, goat, and bleu cheeses wrapped with plenty of crunchy macadamia nuts. The salty crunchiness was a particularly tasty accompaniment to the velvet acidity of the Brooks Pinot Noir.
The Brooks 2010 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is out-of-stock on the Brook’s web site, but you CAN still get it at Binny’s for around $23.
Wendi-Thank you so much for this! I love what you wrote and appreciate the research you did on the brand and the wine! I look forward to meeting you at the Wine Bloggers Conf. Let me know if you have any extra time–would love to have you to the winery! And remind me to tell you how the lady party crasher has had Brooks a couple of times!
Janie-Karen and I would love to visit your winery. It looks lovely! We’ll look for you at the conference and can’t wait to hear the party crasher story. : )