2003 W. H. Smith Pinot Noir

[dananne]

Sonoma Coast

Dark ruby color. Decanted 30 minutes before 1st pour and through evening. Somewhat wierd nose of grapefruit and cranberry, which also impacts the flavors. Flavors add black cherry and plum, but are a bit stewed. It all seems muddled together. Weight is a touch heavy, but it feels like a PN. The grapefruit comes back on the finish in a bad way. I didn't think too highly about it at all, and Anne said "Something was wierd about it, and it was too tart." Some of the wierdness started to blow off after 3 hours, but not enough to overcome some disappointment. The '03 Smith single vineyard offerings scored off the charts on ratings, and this bottle garnered a WS 89. It lends credibility to the argument that they're all idiots or crazy. Perhaps both. 14.5% alc. Paid $26 for it locally, which I won't do again unless I taste it first.

[hotwine]

Dan, if anybody's dumb enough to buy that stuff after reading your notes, they oughta pay a special tax on stupid. Great notes!

[dananne]

We didn't buy any more of this, but we received another as a gift. We weren't too excited to open it. However, it was better than the first one. It still felt too heavy, and leaned too much on stewy plum flavors, but the grapefruit has thankfully gone. So, while still not a great bottle of wine, the bottle age did help this out.