2004 Mahoney Vineyards Carneros Pinot Noir
Mission Codename: Tortoise and the Haire… The Haire wins!
Operative: Agent Red
Objective: Substantiate reports that Mahoney Vineyards, in California’s Carneros region, makes an incredible Pinot Noir
Mission Status: Accomplished!
Current Winery: Mahoney Vineyards
Wine Subject: 2004 Carneros Pinot Noir
Winemaker: Ken Foster
Backgrounder: The Carneros region, which straddles Napa and Sonoma Counties, is famous for producing incredible wines. Particularly Pinot Noir. When reports from numerous Wines Spies field assets suggested that Mahoney Vineyards had created a perfect Pinot Noir, Agent Red was dispatched to investigate. Read his tasting profile and following mission report to learn what makes today’s wine so special
Wine Spies Tasting Profile:
Look – Ruby red with perfect clarity, an ultra-tight surface that quickly settles quickly to perfectly still when swirled, leaving behind chubby and widely-space legs that crawl down the glass
Smell – Deeply aromatic with a rich nose of blueberry, raspberry, sweet cherry, fresh earthen anise, and the slightest flinty gunpowder
Feel – Silky and light up-front, cool then slightly warming, with a unique combination of soft tannic dryness and a soft creaminess
Taste – Delicious, with layers fruit and spice with deep cherry, smoky raspberry and blueberry with mildest sage, mildest leather and flint
Finish – This wine has a finely hewn finish that starts big, with a slight tartness and fruit – but then turns soft, delicate, elegant and slightly dry
Conclusion – Today’s wine is another deeply impressive California Pinot Noir, this time from Carneros, a region with a reputation for producing legendary Pinot Noir. This Pinot has a fantastic and very unique mouth-feel, deep layers of aromas and flavors, and a delicious finish that keeps you sipping and sipping. Enjoy this wine on its own or with most foods. Its balance and acidity make it easy to pair with most meats, cheeses or seafood.
Mission Report:
I make no bones about it, I sometimes find Agent White’s discussions on upgrading our W.I.N.E. (Wine Internet Nexus Engine) system, frightfully boring. The W.I.N.E. system is our proprietary and top secret system that, in simple terms, assists us in finding superior wines for our Operatives.
Making my way to the computer lab, I took a deep breath and braced myself for another of Agent White’s endless soliloquys.
Agent White was grinning widely. A bad sign to be sure.
“Ready to begin?” he asked.
“Uh, sure,” I lied.
“I’ve been working on a new algorithm that will make it easier to determine the likelihood that future vintages of particular wines will be better than previous vintages.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “Sounds great! Let me know know how that turns out.”
“Let S be any finite set, ƒ be any function from S to itself, and x0 be any element of S. For any i > 0, let xi = ƒ(xi−1). Let μ be the smallest index such that the value xμ reappears infinitely often within the sequence of values xi, and let λ (the loop length) be the smallest positive integer such that xμ = xλ+μ. The cycle detection problem is the task of finding λ and μ.”
I blinked at him, suddenly realizing that the blank expression on my face probably revealed my disinterest.
He went on: “I call this my Tortoise and the hare algorithm.
’Hare’… ‘hare’… That reminded me of a well-regarded vineyard I had recently heard of, Haire Vineyard.
Perking up, I grabbed my spy-handheld and, pretending to take notes as Agent White droned happily on. I punched in “Haire Vineyard” and set the Nexus to work. In an instant, a few wines and wineries were revealed. I narrowed my search based on my own favorite search criteria and was presented with a single result:
Mahoney Vineyards. 2004. Carneros Pinot Noir. Haire Vineyard.
As I read about the wine, I nodded and made “mmm, hmmm” sounds. The wine seemed fascinating and I logged a mission request with HQ.
I’ll spare you the rest of Agent White’s discourse. Needless to say, if it hadn’t been for his lecture, I never would have found today’s really superb Pinot Noir.
The Carneros region has consistently wowed me with its quality wine production – particularly Pinot production. Today’s wine is a beautiful example of delicious Carneros Pinot.
Wine Spies Vineyard Check:
The location of the Haire Vineyards can be seen in this spy photo.
