Our Finest Selection Pinot Noir Reviews
Garden herb and forest floor aromas make a case for this wine to be considered the producer's “Finest Selection” (the “FS” in “OFS”). On the palate, wild strawberry, black cherry and berry are the story, while powerful spice adds intrigue to the velvety texture, roundness and full-bodied concentration.
Slowly builds intensity and complexity, offering a taut range of spicy wild berry, raspberry, cherry, spice and crushed rock notes. Most impressive on the finish, where the flavors take on a delicate, supple charm.
Brian Maloney makes this mostly from an estate vineyard on Olivet Road, that fruit augmented by four other vineyards, including two cool sites in the Sebastopol Hills. This has an appetizing warmth to its wild strawberry flavor a ripeness that feels earned rather than pushed. It's sleek and lively, content to be delicious rather than complex.
A spiced-cola thread runs through the dense black fruit; the finish is long and crisp.
SILVER
A more complex and certainly more deeply pitched nose features notes of plum, dark berries and a hint of sandalwood. There is also more volume and mid-palate concentration to the delicious medium-bodied flavors that possess a suave and very rounded mouth feel, all wrapped in a dusty and moderately complex and persistent finish that is notably more robust than the mid-palate.
Aromas of crushed rock, ripe plum, cherry and raspberry form a pleasing core of aromas, turning graceful and refined on the palate without sacrificing the tannic backbone. Drink now through 2022. - J.L.
De Loach’s OFS bottling is a barrel selection of the winery’s extensive vineyard holdings. This 2011 is dry, balanced in acidity and tannins and quite impressive for the way the ripe red fruits and berries hold back, tantalizing with hints of ripeness yet receding into dryness.