One of the workshops I was able to attend at the Pinot Noir Summit last month was “Discovering New Stars,” relatively-new-to-Pinot-Noir winemakers talking about their process and sharing their juice. Perception was one of the wineries at the workshop, and winemaker Mark Ray regaled us with his tale.
Perception makes a “regular” (for lack of a better term) Pinot Noir, but Mark brought with him the single-vineyard version, and I think it was a good call. This was a very complex Pinot, in my opinion, with lots of edges and angles.
The wine is almost tawny in the glass, a bit brownish, but still red at the core. The nose is rather un-Pinot-ish in my opinion, with less fruit and more earth, mushroom, and forest floor to it.
The wine is light-bodied, relatively speaking, and features some subtle strawberry notes along with a more robust cherry. A little white pepper rounds out a rather interesting Pinot Noir. Lots going on here, and I think it’s the single-vineyard factor that really does it: nothing is “balanced out” after the fact. What grows in that one area is all that goes into the bottle.
Quite good work by Mark Ray and the Perception team.
Verdict: 90/100