The Pinot Cup portion of this weekend’s Pigs and Pinot event in Healdsburg was a competition to find the best first and second place pinot noirs out of a selection of 51 pinots from around the world.
Many were from Sonoma, some from Mendocino Ridge, Anderson Valley, Santa Maria or Santa Rita Hills, and then there were a handful from Oregon, one from Australia, one from New Zealand and even a contender out of South Africa, not to mention two very coveted Burgundys.
The vintages included a 2003 (just one of those), three 2005s, a 2006, 31 from 2007 and the remainder, eight, from 2008.
What was very clear across the board is that 2007 is a stellar vintage, top to bottom incredibly delicious, well-made wines. For 2008, at least locally, I’d say it’s too soon to tell. The wines might have been just too young still to fairly be pitted against the 2007s. We shall see.
In the end it came down to two wines that all the judges agreed upon.
And the winner was – Woodenhead’s 2007 Russian River Valley Buena Tierra Vineyard Pinot Noir.
Woodenhead vintners Nikolei Stez and Zina Bower are longtime Russian River stalwarts who have trudged along the hard way, making small amounts of pinot and zinfandel. Just a couple years ago they opened a tasting room on River Road to try and get their wines out to more of the world.
In a nice twist of fate, before starting Woodenhead, Nikolei had worked 17 harvests at Williams Selyem, who just happened to have the second-place wine at this year’s Pinot Cup, the 2007 Westside Road Neighbors Pinot Noir.
Visit Woodenhead Thursday through Monday 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 5700 River Road, Santa Rosa. Or give them a call to say congrats and order some wine, 707-887-2703.
