2009 Michel-Schlumberger Pinot Blanc
How Sonoma Does Pinot Blanc
On this past Saturday, my wife Heather and I drove from our sleepy little East Bay burg to sleepy little Dry Creek Valley for a day in the fun, sun, wind and vines. Our day included stops at three DCV wineries and lunch at the legendary Dry Creek General Store (best BLTA of my life), but everything came to a proper conclusion when we met up with Hardy Wallace of Dirty South Wine and The NPA at Michel-Schlumberger Wine Estate.
What a gorgeous place.
The staff were incredibly friendly, and not just because we were there to meet Hardy and they were expecting us. We tasted up and down the M-S offerings, sipping on wines as old as their 1998 library cabernet sauvignon, to as new as this: a pinot blanc harvested just last year.
It’s been in the bottle a week or so. Talk about young!
It’s also fantastically delicious. Don’t get me wrong: this wine is neither epic, nor complex. It won’t make you see God or contemplate life’s true meaning. But it is delicious. It’s got “hanging with friends on my deck in the summer grilling up dogs and ribs” written all over it. Writ large, even.
So, what about the wine itself?
It’s almost clear, but with a nice lemongrass yellow-gold in the glass. The nose is clean and crisp, featuring most prominently a pear note, but with some good citrus rind as well. The palate is everything you expect from a deliciously drinkable, down-home white wine: clean, crisp, light bodied, with notes of apple, pear, lemon rind and even a hint of sour lime. Everything bright and inviting.
The 2009 Pinot Blanc is not listed for sale on the M-S website yet, but the 2008 retailed for $21, so I would expect the same price point for this newest vintage. And at that price, it’s well worth it.
Verdict: 91/100