theCompass
 Home   Map   Blog Roll   WineCompass   Wine 101   My Compass 

Steele Pinot Blanc

Steele Pinot Blanc Wine Details
Price: $14.00 per bottle

Description: We started making Pinot Blanc so that we would have another white wine besides Chardonnay to have at winmaker dinners. In fact, we often called Pinot Blanc our “baby Chardonnay” This grape is the colorless expression of the red Pinot Noir grape. The Pinot family have very unstable genetics and the result are the many clones of Pinot Noir, the dusky colored white grape called Pinot Gris and this grape the Pinot Blanc.

Varietal Definition
Pinot Blanc:
White grape popular for the dry white wines it produces. Increasingly grown in California, the Northwest, Northeast, Canada.
Chardonnay:
Chardonnay is by far the most widely planted grape crop in California and dominates California’s cooler, coastal, quality wine regions. The natural varietal ‘taste and smell’ of Chardonnay is surprisingly unfamiliar to many wine drinkers, as its true character is often guised with dominating winemaking signatures. Chardonnay’s rather subdued primary fruit characteristics lean toward the crisp fruitiness of apples, pears and lemon, but the variety’s full body is capable of supporting a host of complementary characteristics, such as oak, butter and vanilla. Regardless of what is the appropriate style for Chardonnay, the varietal continues to dominate vineyard plantings in every corner of the world. Close attention to clonal selection has made this broad geographic and climactic range of Chardonnay viable in thoughtful viticultural hands.
Pinot Noir:
The name is derived from the French words for ‘pine’ and ‘black’ alluding to the varietals' tightly clustered dark purple pine cone shaped bunches of fruit. Pinot Noir grapes are grown around the world, mostly in the cooler regions, but the grape is chiefly associated with the Burgundy region of France. It is widely considered to produce some of the finest wines in the world, but is a difficult variety to cultivate and transform into wine. By volume most Pinot Noir in America is grown in California with Oregon coming in second. Other regions are Washington State and New York.During 2004 and the beginning of 2005, Pinot Noir became considerably more popular amongst consumers in the United States, possibly because of the movie Sideways. Being lighter in style, it has benefited from a trend toward more restrained, less alcoholic wines. It is the delicate, subtle, complex and elegant nature of this wine that encourages growers and winemakers to cultivate this difficult grape. Robert Parker has described Pinot Noir: "When it's great, Pinot Noir produces the most complex, hedonistic, and remarkably thrilling red wine in the world."


Reviews




Back to Steele Wines information