{"id":3028,"date":"2009-10-09T09:17:29","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T16:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/winetraveler\/?p=858"},"modified":"2009-10-09T09:17:29","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T16:17:29","slug":"the-next-growing-region-for-pinot-noir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/the-next-growing-region-for-pinot-noir\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Growing Region for Pinot Noir?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again the Vintage Wine Tasters discover yet another amazing wine bargain. This time, a Pinot Noir wine for $17 from a wine-growing area in California unknown to almost any wine expert or critic. The Vintage Wine Tasters met on this past Wednesday and tasted six highly-touted bargain Pinot Noir wines. We wanted to see if we could find a delicious Pinot Noir for under $25. Any Pinot Noir wine lover knows what a difficult task this is as prices have soared ever since the “Sideways”\u009dmovie glorified Pinot Noir and knocked poor Merlot for a loop.<\/p>\n

Our host Jim was in charge of the wine tasting and for the past two months, he has been reading the wine magazines and searching the shelves for value Pinot Noir wines. The six wines selected were:<\/p>\n

2005 Keller Estate, Sonoma Coast, purchased at Costco for $18.50
\n2007 Cambria, Santa Maria Valley, purchased at Costco for $19.00
\n2007 Calera, Central Coast, purchased at Beverages & More for $23
\n2007 Grayson Cellars, California, purchased at Beverages & More for $15
\n2007 Alpen Cellars, Trinity County, purchased at K&L Wines for $17
\n2007 Brooks, Willamette Valley, purchased at K&L Wines for $19.<\/p>\n

We found only two of the six wines to our liking. Our top choice was the ”\u02dc07 Alpen Cellars, followed closely by the Calera. The Vintage Wine Tasters judged these two wines to be equal to or better than many Pinot Noir wines costing $25 or more.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What a surprise when we unveiled the brown bags and found our top choice to be from Trinity County. This is the first time any of us had heard of grapes growing in Trinity County. The County is way up in northern California where Bigfoot hangs out and where beer-drinking fishermen and hunters like to venture. The exact area is called the Trinity Lakes region. The elevation is high and that means cool evening and morning temperatures for much of the summer season. Could this be the next big growing area for Pinot Noir? Perhaps, but I found out there are about seven wineries in Trinity County and ten different growers. I spoke with Keith Groves, the winemaker at Alpen Cellars. Keith produces about 5000 cases of wine annually of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Gerwuztraminer from 22 vineyard acres. Ken has been making wine here for 24 years and selling it mostly to visitors and local restaurants and wine shops. Ken recently hired a broker who has brought the attention of the Alpen wines to the San Francisco Bay Area. Until now the Chardonnay has been their flagship wine, but the rush may be on to buy the Alpen Pinot Noir wine now that the Vintage Wine Tasters have selected it as the best bargain Pinot Noir wine under $25. <\/p>\n

Our next tasting will be in two months and we will be savoring Syrah wines from around the world that cost no more than $20 a bottle. Yes, we do accept samples, but remember that this is a blind wine tasting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again the Vintage Wine Tasters discover yet another amazing wine bargain. This time, a Pinot Noir wine for $17 from a wine-growing area in California unknown to almost any wine expert or critic. The Vintage Wine Tasters met on this past Wednesday and tasted six highly-touted bargain Pinot Noir wines. We wanted to see … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[454,459],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1885],"authors":[{"term_id":1885,"user_id":3,"is_guest":0,"slug":"joe","display_name":"Joe Becerra","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Joe-Becerra.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Joe-Becerra.jpg"},"first_name":"Joe","last_name":"Becerra","user_url":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com","description":"Joe Becerra has been traveling to wine country and enjoying wine since 1965. He is a retired educator, and now have the time the opportunity to share his wine travel experiences through this Website."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winecountrygetaways.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}