This is a good, pretty dark, farily full-bodied wine. But it wasn't what I expected from a 1999, missing the tannins and acidity that have come in the best 1999's I've had to date. It shows a nice nost of cherry and a solid core of dark cherry with a hint of spicy oak, but tails off at the end without the tightness or tartness that I've come to love in the fine 1999's I've had. It surprises me, since it seemed pretty sharp on first tasting a few months ago. The remaining two bottles will wait a few months before retrial.

Tightness and tartness are positive attributes of a wine?

I enjoy Pinot with gripping acidity, as long as it's well balanced by softer elements. That being said, a tight wine usually hides the fruity elements that often work against tartness.

I get the fealing that "tight" in this note means seemless, like all of the components working together.

Is that correct?

I don't understand how something can be described as "missing the acidity of other 99's" and then be described as "tart".

I really am not questioning your write up. You seem to have enjoyed the bottle so I was hoping to get a better understanding of it's profile. It appears that you drink a lot of Oregon pinot, and they don't make up a large portion of my cellar.

I drink a lot of Oregon Pinot Noir, and make up a large proportion of my cellar. I would never equate tightness and/or tartness with a very good or better wine. I feel that Pinot Noir does need decent acidity for the sake of balance, food friendliness, and ageability, but not to the point of being tart.

As far a "tight" is concerned, some wines balance out with time and some don't. I've seen too many "tight" wines that never come out it to ever buy more than a single bottle.

Oy, tough language crowd. Sorry for the somewhat loose use of approved terms. I won't claim to be fluent in the correlation between standard wine writing term "X" and flavor/olfactory sensation "Y". So I slop around a bit.

In any case, I first wrote that the wine didn't seem to be showing the "tannins and acidity" that I expected. Later I used "tightness and tartness" because I didn't feel like using the same words over again. I meant the latter to mean essentially the former. (Though a good tart Barbera or Marechal Foch can be good fun).

I found the wine lower in tannins and acidity relative to my initial taste a few months ago, and relative to other 1999s, and was surprised by that. I like wine young, tannic, and spicy, and found this wine a little less invigorating than I had thought it would be.

Cool,

Not being yough on you, I just wasn't following the note and I wanted to learn more about the wine. Thanks for the clarification and keep the Oregon TN's coming!