Thomas 2002,

Very tight fruit laden nose. A little bit of new leather and bushels of ripe fruit and tannins. This is a monster but not a scary monster. There is so much packed into this wine that I wonder how they got the cork in the bottle. It is full of blackberry, cherry, graham cracker, and on and on. The finish is tight and just waiting for the right time to reveal itself, maybe in the next 6 to 10 years.. A great wine with a great future. 94 points and counting.

P5

Paulie,
Could you please let us know about the availability and price of this wine? It sounds like a winner.

Hard to say out where you are. I can't believe they said it was only $25 bucks a pop. I tried it with Jim Maresh and a few others. I know that there is only about 3 acres worth of fruit in 2002. Thomas has been replanting due to a phorxoria problem. (gee I hope I spelled that right). At any rate the wine was top notch just needing some time to settle down .


P5

Thanks, Paulie. I looked for it on wine-searcher.com, but drew a blank.

I'd like to know how to get some of this myself. It sounds like a pinot I'd enjoy as well.

John Thomas is a small scale, but very experienced, "fly under the radar" winemaker in Oregon. He makes great traditional PN, and sells almost exclusively via his mailing list. He can be reached at:
P.O. Box 48, Carlton, OR 97111. PH-(503) 852-6969.

He was one of the original Oregon growers that planted his 4-acre vineyard with meter x meter spacing. It was self-rooted, and several years ago phylloxera set-in. He's replaced some of his original plants with the new plant material (Dijon clones) that has since become available. This fruit is now coming online, and probably accounts, in part, for the praise of this wine... although, 2002 is a really great vintage too.

Historically, John's wines have required 2 or 3 years in the cellar to become accessible. I'd expect this to continue to be the case, given his style, but the integration of the young vine fruit may make the wine more accessible when young.

Tasted this wine again in Dundee last evening. My notes are identical. This is one of the best 2002's I've had the pleasure of tasting. Just a baby with years of life and devolopment ahead if it.

Cheers,
P5

I had half a bottle of this on Saturday night and finished it the next evening. It was much better the next evening. Almost every great Pinot Noir that I've had tasted great when it was young. I found this wine to be very tight/acidic, but with a lot of fruit and concentration. For me it was probably a 90-91 point wine with a lot of potential. I will probably buy some but I worry about how everything integrates. John certainly has a very good track record.

Had my first bottle of six tonight. I agree with the notes above with the wine being both tight and acidic. Has an essence of Burgundy in style with all the elements there to mature into a great wine. The finish didn't reveal a lot behind the tannins; just enough to make you realize that it is in there. I could be wrong, but I feel like this is going to be awsome. I'll try another in two years. I'm going to drink this bottle over the course of three days to see how it evolves. Very happy about this purchase.

Poured another glass last night and was even more impressed. The fruit came out more on the nose and the palate opened up also to reveal the dark fruit. I also detected a hint of graham cracker described above. This wine gained a point or two from the first night. I'll try the last of the bottle tonight.

Thanks for the info.
This wine is widely available in Missouri but is $40 a bottle.
If it can be found for $25, that is a steal.

Dain

Dain, I beleive I paid $210 for a six pack with the shipping charge included.