TN: 2001 BElle Pente Willamette PN

Last night Betsy made duck with a demi-glace & herb sauce, along with green beans and brown rice. The wine was the 2001 Belle Pente Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley). I have really liked some of the single vineyard Pinots from Belle Pente before, and looked forward to this one. Quite light-colored, a pretty earthy-cherry nose. Good acidity, lots of mushroom-earth aromas. The fruit is a bright cherry. The issue I had with this wine was the concentration- a pretty enough wine, but not enough oomph there. Now I'm not a fruit-plant man, but this is just not quite concentrated enough for me. The single vineyard Wahle and Murto are only a few dollars more, and are worth the difference. Not a bad wine-blind I think I would have guessed something like 2000 Bourgogne from a middling producer- but not enough to stand up to the duck. B-B-

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.