If the following saga sounds a bit familiar, it\u2019s because we had a couple of rounds of insane Pinot Noir closeouts from the Knez winery earlier this year. The \u2018back story\u2019 itself is one of the more unusual we have told in all of our years of doing this and this \u2018Episode 3\u2019 is quite the climax to the Knez trilogy of Pinot Noir tales.\u00a0 We ‘ve already sold a ton but we took down a ton and a half and, really, there’s nothing out there this expensively made for this kind of price<\/p>\n
For those of you who don\u2019t recall that Knez story, here\u2019s a refresher. It starts (and ends) with Peter Knez, a math genius who did quite well for himself designing things like algorithms used by Wall Street types. Apparently, around 2007, Peter and his wife decided to move to the Anderson Valley to live the \u2018dream\u2019 of a rural life in \u2018wine country.\u2019 These were intelligent, highly successful folks turning their attention to the wine business, though that part is not particularly unusual.<\/p>\n
Here, these \u2018city folk\u2019 wasted no time in getting down to business. They acquired two of Mendocino\u2019s prime Pinot Noir vineyards, Demuth and Cerise, in 2007 and 2008, and planted their own Knez Vineyard in 2009. Winemaker Anthony Filiberti, who was quite familiar with these sites from his work with the respected Anthill Farms, came on board here as winemaker\/viticulturist (as well as partner we are told). It wasn\u2019t long before the winery was attracting attention and praise from the media. They were making compelling wines and farming these outstanding vineyards biodynamically. Things went along swimmingly, or so it seemed, and this is where we are supposed to say, \u2018and they lived happily ever after.\u2019<\/p>\n
As it turned out, we have to presume that these folks didn\u2019t really find the \u2018simple life\u2019 to their liking. They have sold their vineyards, finding an enthusiastic buyer in Kosta Browne for their important Knez, Demuth and Cerise holdings. The only other thing to do was sell their supply of highly-reviewed Pinot Noirs. Some folks have money problems, others have family issues. But this just seems to be a case where the Knez folk simply wanted out. Because of the quality of the juice and the dirt, it didn\u2019t appear that the process was going to take very long.<\/p>\n
We, and you, have certainly done our parts in making a lot<\/em> of great Knez Pinot go away.<\/p>\n As they say, success is in the eye of the beholder as well. Knez apparently did not think the sell-off was going fast enough for his tastes. So, he changed horses with respect to his representation and rolled out an even crazier price on his Knez Winery Pinot Noir Anderson Valley 2013! From another epic vintage in California, this bottling is made from approximately 2\/3 Cerise and 1\/3 Demuth fruit and saw a fair bit of whole clusters in the fermentation.<\/p>\n Antonio Galloni of Vinous Media was succinct in his praise of the Knez Winery Pinot Noir Anderson Valley 2013<\/strong><\/a>, \u201cThe 2013 Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley) is quite floral, lifted and delicate in style. Raspberry, crushed flowers and mint are some of the notes that grace this pretty, entry-level offering from Knez. Today (January, 2015), the 2013 comes across as a bit ethereal, with plenty of influence from the 50-60% whole clusters. The wine’s mid-weight personality leads me to think it is best enjoyed sooner rather than later…90 points.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019d make a couple of points here. The 2013s were much tighter out of the gate than the 2014s, and we think the nearly 3 years of bottle age has greatly benefited this cooler-climate Pinot noir allowing the fruit to expand and take on weight, and the nose to develop complexity. The bottle aging has already been done for you and, thanks to this rather unusual set of events, it\u2019s like a Pinot Noir Black Friday all over again price-wise.<\/p>\n As you\u2019ll possibly recall if you saw the last two offers, the single vineyard wines had original price tags approaching $50, and this one \u2018listed\u2019 at the winery for $34, not a bad price for the caliber of juice in this bottle. But thanks to this make-it-go-away offer, we are proffering this seriously intended, estate grown $34 Pinot for $14.98, about what you\u2019d pay for some marginal commercial Pinot that probably isn\u2019t even all Pinot!<\/p>\n Remember, Kosta Browne will be launching wines from these exact same vineyards starting in the 2016 vintage with, presumably, $90 price tags.\u00a0\u00a0Needless to reiterate, this is a pretty fantastic, once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity and, based on the new owners of these vineyards, will not be happening again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If the following saga sounds a bit familiar, it\u2019s because we had a couple of rounds of insane Pinot Noir closeouts from the Knez winery earlier this year. The \u2018back story\u2019 itself is one of the more unusual we have told in all of our years of doing this and this \u2018Episode 3\u2019 is quite … Continue reading “Don’t Miss This $34 Pinot Noir (for $15)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[225,224,223,97],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2423,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421\/revisions\/2423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}