With all these pinot mailers with Clos Pepe fruit coming at me, is it time again? Loring, AP Vin, Siduri, Brewer Clifton, etc.

Why don't we do both an older vintage and a newest vintage tasting? That way we can see how the different wineries Clos Pepe Pinot's age. Then we can drink/taste some of the new stuff to clean our taste buds.

Hey, this sounds like a good idea.

One, two, three, look at Mr. Lee
Three, four, five, look at him jive
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee

I met my winemaker
His name is Mr. Lee
I met my winemaker
His name is Mr. Lee
He's the bestest winemaker
That you ever did see

My heart is achin' for Pinot Mr. Lee
My heart is achin' for Pino Mr. Lee
'Cause I love Pinot so
And I'll never let Pinot go

Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee

Here comes Mr. Lee
He's got Pinot for me
Here comes Mr. Lee
He's got Pinot for me
He's my Pinot guy
Let's jump for the sky

Come on Mr. Lee and do your stuff
Come on Mr. Lee and do your stuff
'Cause you make the best Pinot
Till the end of time

One, two, three, look at Mr. Lee
Three, four, five, look at him jive
One, two, three, look at Mr. Lee
Three, four, five, look at him jive

Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee

One, two, three, look at Mr. Lee
Three, four, five, look at him jive

Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee
Oh, Mr. Lee
Mr. Lee
---------------------------------

Adam, chime in.
Can we do it at your place again?

Count me in. I suggest that we do this in Virginia so that no one has to travel too far.

Good thinking Dave.Virginiatown is actuall pretty close to Sacramento. Its 5 frwy close for those of us traveling.

Enthusiastic support here too. I'd be willing to work to source an older bottle or two. The question is which vintage? I don't have long enough experience with Clos Pepe to have an informed opinion there.

I will be up for it - but later, guys, later. There is no room in this place - unless everyone who comes agrees to put in 4 hours of work on punchdowns, pressing, barrel prep, sorting, etc.

Seriously, let's revist this in a month and come up with a date and we will make the winery available!

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Thanks for the offer. We need a couple months to receive some of these wines as well.

Thanks Adam,

Should we just set a date now say third or fourth week of January (I think the SuperBowl isn't until February; not that anyone here in NorCal will have an interest in that).

I say January because November and December are pretty busy months social wise.

I would like to suggest the following for the wines.

One round of 2001 Pinot from a Santa Rita vineyard (Last time we did Clos Pepe).

One round or 2001 Pinot from a Santa Lucia vineyard.

One round of 2001 Pinot from a North Coast vineyard (or we could break this down futhere if we wanted i.e. Sonoma Coast and RRV.

One round of 1994 CA Pinot. I say that because '94 was one of the better years for the stuff. Maybe that's too old. I don't know how many bottles we could come up with. I know I don't have any.

Maybe 2002 would be better than 2001 for quality but I'm finding that my '01 Pinots are just starting to really sing.

Suggestions?

I'm thinking that January is probably a good time frame unless we do early November. One advantage to doing this in January is that more of the latest Clos Pepe wines will be released. The original idea I had was an older Clos Pepe (1999 or 2000) and the most recent release (2003 or are the 2004's out). Get wines from as many producers as we can from those two vintages and see how things go. There should be plenty of wines to taste. No need for other wines. Last time we did this with only one vintage of Clos Pepe and then afterwards there was a free for all with open wine bottles. This time we could do two different vintages and possibly also have a free for all afterwards.

I like a current release flight and a flight with 2 or 3 years of age. I also like the "free for all"!

I'd be interested in seeing how Hirsch vineyard wines fare across a range of producers too. Like Clos Pepe, there are several high quality producers sourcing Hirsch grapes.

Throw in a Martinelli Blue Slide Ridge from a recent vintage. All the others can fight for second place.

Let's get real here folks, if we want to do a tasting with all the Clos Pepe wines we can't have several different vintages or several different vineyards in addition to Clos Pepe as we'll be tasting all day and most of the results will be irrelevant as most of us are unable to taste more than about 20 or so wines and give coherrent results.

So I am hereby declaring this a "latest Clos Pepe vintage (2003 or 2004, whichever is available) and a 2000 Clos Pepe tasting". Forget any of the other Santa Lucia/Sonoma/Santa Rita/... wines. These other wines can be served in the "free for all".

give coherrent results.

what does that mean?

Sounds good to me.

I could have sworn that the last time we did this we did it with two different vineyards. The deal was a challenge by Jones with the Brewer Clifton Pinot against something else. We had the event at Adam's place and Adam counted all the votes so naturally the Siduri won . Just because Siduri was the best doesn't mean anything.


So what are the "clos pepe" vineyard wines.

Clos Pepe
Siduri
Loring
Brewer Clifton
Ojai
Hitching Post

Others?