WTN: Le Clos Jordanne Pinot Noir Village Reserve 2004

The first vintage of a much ballyhooed joint venture between Ontario's Vincor (now owned by Constellation Brands) and Boisset of France.

Niagara Peninsula.

Light to medium red color.

A lovely nose: smoky, cherry, red licorice, spicy, vanilla and a great tang to lift it all.

Smooth, viscous, somewhat sweet, cherry fruit, earthy, creamy, lightly charred, with a good tart-earthy-bitter edge to keep it food friendly and clean. With time, the wine also showed a hint of vegginess. Matched very well with BBQed salmon.

Cleansing acidity and earthiness on the finish.

I enjoyed it very much. I realize that some Pinot Noir purists may poo-poo the wine for its quite obvious charms (creamy, rich and round in the mouth). I would never consider myself a Pinot Noir expert but I have had several and I know what I like and I like this.

Not bad for $25 (Canadian) and, in particular, not bad for Ontario.

Thanks for the note on this. As you know, there is an incredible amount of speculation on this new producer, and it's good to see some actual tasting notes on their wines!

I have to say I'm not usually a fan of some new company coming into a region and immediately bumping up the prices of the local product, but if the wines can 'talk the talk' as well as 'walk the walk', that's all you can ask. Certainly $25 - I assume this is the 'basic' pinot? - is a fair price.

Yes, John, the $25 I cited is for their basic Pinot. Their top end goes for $60 and Vintages only released a ridiculously small amount of 55 six-bottle cases of that for the entire province.

Bruce, thanks for posting. Looks like it may be worth crossing the border for this one. PNs along the escarpment, on both sides of the border, look very promising.

So the basic pinot is also the reserve..

When it will ever end!