Several months ago, BRS favorite wine maker Sean Thackrey offered a set of "experimental" white label wines that he'd recently bottled in small quantities. I had to try all three: first up, Cassiopeia (clone 115) a single vinyard, single clone Pinot Noir from grapes grown in the Wentzel Vineyard in the Anderson Valley. It's very unusual to do this little blending--usually there's some kind of defect or peculiarity to balance out--but the result is really exciting.
This wine calls up a very specific sense memory for me. It's a Fourth of July snowcone--the one where you had the vendor squirt some of each flavor onto the same cone, resulting in a mix of cherry, strawberry, raspberry and lemon-lime. This wine is the adults only version of that snowcone. It's not sugary or overly fruity. Instead, it's very clear and vivid, both in appearance and in flavor, with a wonderful fragrance and mouthfeel. Possibly oversaturated for some Pinot drinkers, but it should only improve in composition over time.
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