2003 Hip Chicks do Wine Reserve Pinot Noir

[dananne]

Willamette Valley.

I've posted on many different wines from this winery, and most fall into the "not serious, but fun to drink" category. This one is fun to drink, but it is a serious wine that shows these gals know more than just creative marketing.

Garnet color in the decanter, where it sat for 30 minutes before 1st pour. Nose of cherry, violet, and the smallest hint of barnyard. Cherry pie flavors add cola, clove, and the hint of cinnamon. A nice wine that does have a small flaw, and that is it appears to suffer from the same noticeable alcohol pattern as many of the Willamette '03s. The alc isn't high, however, at 13%. It's better than many did with the difficult '03 vintage heat, though, and it indicates that they may be able to do stellar work with Pinot fruit in better years, like '04 and '05. We paid about $25 at the winery following a nice visit with the owners/founders. FWIW, WE 85.

[dananne]

OK, so we've now had about 2 years to drink the wines we got on our visit at Hip Chicks, and I'll say this: by and large, the wines aren't on the serious side, though they seem to take care in their Reserve Pinot and their single-vineyard Syrah. That having been said, almost everything seems to have tasted better at the winery than they do now. I'm not sure if that says more about us or about the wines. We had the Syrah recently, and it's not getting any better. We had the last bottle of the '03 Pinot Noir last night, and it had clearly lost something since the last bottle. Maybe it was just in a dumb phase, but I'm more inclined to say it's just falling apart. So, short story long, drink up early.