Sea Smoke Pinot and a short rant

I'm sipping the 2002 Sea Smoke "Ten" at the moment. I bought a couple of bottles on futures, which was still $50+. The AVA is Santa Rita Hills, which has become quite the thing recently in Pinot circles - especially after the movie "Sideways".

This is a dense, rich, well balanced wine - even at 14.5% alcohol. There's plenty of new French oak present too, but not an excess. It's a very skilfully made wine - well polished, I'd say.

Too many new winemakers are putting stuff on the market that I would charitably describe as barrel samples. These wines are cloudy, under-oaked and immature to the point of still tasting grapey, and of course unfined and unfiltered. They aren't particularly shy about tacking a big price on them either.

One that comes to mind is a Melville (Santa Rita Hills) Pinot Noir I bought a year or two ago. They may grow great fruit, but I don't like their minimalist approach to winemaking.

Another winery that does this to some degree is Presidio. I really like some of the Pinots they have produced, but they throw a lot of very fine sediment in bottle that is extremely difficult to decant from efficiently.

I *hate* drinking cloudy wine! Suspended solids interfere with the flavor of good wine by mucking up the palate feel. IMNSHO, misguided winemakers who shun fining do a disservice both to their wines and their customers, and all it would take to address this issue effectively is a light bentonite fining prior to bottling.

Tom S www.chateauburbank.com