They call Pinot Noir the “heartbreak grape,” but that doesn’t prevent legions of growers and makers from wanting to work with it. And for someone as studious and passionate about wine as Master Sommelier Geoff Kruth, making a Pinot Noir is almost a foregone conclusion—at some point, I think every sommelier dreams of making his or her own wine, and let’s face it, Pinot Noir is the Holy Grail.
Having assembled a team that includes sommelier-turned-winemaker Megan Glaab (Ryme Cellars), Geoff is no longer an upstart. His just-released 2014 shows it: Lost & Found, which has from the beginning exhibited the nerve, perfume, and fruit/earth balance of great red Burgundy, has evolved from being a compelling niche item to a reference-point Russian River wine. Having been smack in the middle of this region for so many years, Geoff identified something he felt was mostly missing from the opulent (and undeniably delicious) wines that made the region famous: tension. If there’s a Lost & Found calling card, it’s finesse, and balance—traits that are greatly enhanced by the three years of bottle age the wines receive before release. This is a Pinot Noir of supreme elegance combined with a nice level of bounce that can only come from the Russian River—and, as in the past, SommSelect is one of the few places you’ll find it at retail. If I’m not drinking red Burgundy, this is one of the first Pinot Noirs I’m reaching for!
Geoff is the well-known Master Sommelier who co-produced the film SOMM: Into The Bottle and who now runs the exhaustive GuildSomm website, among other pursuits. He was a mentor to me when I was studying for the MS exam, and was especially adept at explaining (and demonstrating) the deductive reasoning of blind tasting. I respect his palate immensely, and Lost & Found is a perfect reflection of his thoughtful, nuanced approach to wine. He wasn’t out to dismiss other Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs as “bad” or “wrong,” but rather to search for another dimension in the wines from this famed terroir.
The Bartolomei Vineyard is an amphitheater-shaped hillside site in the Green Valley subzone of Russian River Valley; 2014 was Geoff’s fifth harvest from the site, which is planted to three different Pinot Noir clones that are vinified separately. Before they even developed their Michelin-starred Farmhouse Inn (where Geoff was the longtime sommelier), Catherine and Joe Bartolomei rehabbed a small vineyard on their ranch, which had been in their family for almost 100 years. Although it had once been planted to Zinfandel, Catherine and Joe put in heirloom clones of Pinot Noir on hillside sites. Geoff proposed a partnership with Joe, Catherine, and Catherine’s husband, the wine writer Rod Smith, and they enlisted ex-Farmhouse Inn sommelier Megan Glaab (who now makes wine with her husband, Ryan, under the Ryme Cellars label) to help define what Lost & Found would be—namely, a Pinot Noir that is harvested at optimum, rather than extreme, ripeness to preserve acidity; that incorporates some ‘whole cluster’ fermentation to lend savor and grip; and is aged in neutral barrels to minimize the influence of oak.
During crush, the riper portion of the hillside is fermented with whole clusters intact while the remaining fruit is de-stemmed. Each individual Pinot clone in the eight-acre site is fermented separately with only native yeasts in open-topped vessels. The wine is aged in used barrels for one year then bottled without any artificial adjustments. As noted above, Geoff opts to hold the wine back for several years and only releases the wine when he feels it is ready to be enjoyed. He describes his 2014 release as not only his “favorite” so far but as slightly more fruit-forward than the 2013, which we offered last year.
Nevertheless, this 2014 is hardly a “fruit bomb” and comes in at a slightly more modest alcohol level (13.4%) than the 2013, in fact. What I think it achieves—and what it has always achieved, since the first release—is an elegant melding of Californian exuberance and Burgundian soul. In the glass, it’s a shimmering ruby moving to garnet and pink at the rim, with an aromatic profile that gives remarkably equal time to fruit and earth sensations: black and red cherry, raspberry, cranberry, violet, black tea, and a nice note of underbrush. Medium-bodied, with well-integrated, crushed-velvet tannins and a brightening lift of freshness, this really has a well-knit, effortless feel to it—it’s ready to enjoy now (having mellowed in bottle for three years before release) in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees. No need to decant, simply pull the cork 15-20 minutes before service. It’s restrained fruit and bright acidity make it’s a pitch-perfect food wine: try it next to the sweet-meets-savory-meets-spicy flavors in the attached recipe. This is exciting stuff!
