Your Best Wines of this Millennium as the New One Approaches?

[Jerry D Mead]

Two of the three first vintages of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard Pinot Noirs, the debut 1975 and the magnificent 1975, are two wines that absolutely stand out in my memory.

The winegrower is a personal friend and we tasted from the barrel and have followed the wine throughout its life. I opened one of my last remaining bottles of 1975 with winemaker Ken Burnap last year and the damned thing is still alive and well. Keep in mind this is very intense juice, from an old clone, dry-farmed at high elevation...with yields from 1/4 ton to 1/2 ton to the acre. Still a quarter of a century is a lot to ask from a Pinot Noir...especially since I do not have ideal storage.

I may pop a 1977 for Millennium...I always liked it just slightly better.

By the by...I don't remember the year now, but a friend did a blind tasting of a complete set of DRC wines with the two SCMV Pinots inserted as ringers. They placed 1 and #3 as I recall...and this was totally blind.

Burnap probably remembers the details better than I...I'll try to get him to stop by with the info and maybe contribute his own millennium favorites.