Winery - Goldeneye
* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This was a very good vintage for Goldeneye, the best since ’01. The fruit got ripe, offering up a big mouthful of jammy cherry and raspberry flavors accented with sweet oak. The tannin-acid balance is just great. It’s delicious, yet has all kinds of complex edges and nuances.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Amazingly vibrant. Begins with oak, smoke, char and vanilla from barrels, and then the aromas blast into coconut cream pie, black cherry, licorice and rich spices. It’s in the mouth that the wine stuns with spicy intensity. Dry and stylish, this dry, precocious wine will improve with short-term aging. —S.H.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This Mendocino Pinot carries a fistful of oak, and that wood creates some lemony, sawmill aromas. Within its class, it’s a large, vibrant one, and it seems to have bitten off more that it can chew. The wood notes are just too omnipresent. That said, it has ripe fruit and a large, satisfying mouthfeel.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This is a barrel selection in honor of the winery’s 10th birthday. It’s the densest Pinot Noir Goldeneye has ever produced, a rich, thick wine that’s a bit Rhônish right now. The idea is ageability. The flavors show equal parts of red, ripe cherries and berries and herbs, spices and mushrooms. Just 320 cases were produced. Try after 2010.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Here’s a bright, accessible but complex young Pinot Noir, appealing for its savory flavors of red cherry pie filling, cocoa, bacon, nutmeg and pepper. Elegantly crisp and silky now, it should develop for 4–6 years.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
There’s a wild, feral quality to this fine Pinot Noir. It has forest flavors of wild mushrooms, thyme, fennel, anise and pine, along with more familiar flavors of red cherries, cola and sandalwood. Elegant and ageable. Now through 2012.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
An extraordinary wine, although it’s very young and thick now and needs time in the bottle. Totally dry, it shows elaborate flavors of cherries, raspberries, cocoa and sandalwood, with exotic notes of wild fennel, violets and nutmeg. Distinctive and compelling.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Very rich, very fine, this Pinot is a blend of Goldeneye’s best vineyards. It shows a molten density, like liquid silver, lush in red cherries, licorice, cinnamon, coco, dried herb and orange zest flavors, and should develop in the bottle through 2012.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This is a challenging wine. It has much to like, namely the forward cherry fruit, elaborate oak and silky texture. On the other hand, the wine lacks vibrant acidity, and has a simple, syrupy finish. Not going anywhere, so drink up.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Winemaker Zach Rasmuson did not produce a Narrows Vineyard bottling in 2005. Instead, those grapes went into the regular Goldeneye, to its great benefit. The wine is particularly rich and powerful in cherry pie filling, black raspberry, mocha, Dr. Pepper and smoky oak flavors, with a gorgeous, mouth-filling texture that’s dramatic on the finish.
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