December 21, 2018

MAC FORBES Pinot Noir 2017

(Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia) $30

Several things are very surprising about this wine: the quality (stunning); the price (what a deal!), and the place it’s from (Australia—really?). Really. The fact that cool parts of Australia, like the Yarra Valley of Victoria, are the source of beautiful pinot is a secret that’s, by now, too well kept. As for this Mac Forbes: imagine a lovely, earthy, salty, savory, sexy pinot that smells (as so many great pinots do) gently human, like a newborn baby. If you love pinot noir, you know what I mean. I still can’t believe this costs thirty bucks. (12% abv)

93 points KM

Available at Vivino.com

In the Spanish region of Priorat, the term “old vines” is used for vineyards that are over 20 years old.

Answer: False.

The term “old vines” or velles vinyes in Catalan, is heavily regulated; vines must be planted before 1945 to legally use the term on the label—a situation that is verified with aerial photographs taken in 1945! The wines’ concentration is a result of painfully low-yielding, head-trained (that is, un-trellised) vines that protrude, gnarled and contorted, from the region’s poor, stony, slate-laced soil called llicorella (“licorice”) because of its blackish color. The vines themselves are so small they have sometimes been referred to as “bonsai vines.” Days here are intensely hot; nights, very cool. In this dry, infertile, unforgiving landscape, few crops other than grapevines and olive trees have ever survived.

Noble Rot

Botrytis cinerea, commonly called “noble rot,” is a beneficial fungus that’s needed to produce many of the world’s great sweet wines, including Sauternes and Tokaji Aszú. When noble rot attacks grapes, it covers them with… Continue reading

MAC FORBES Pinot Noir 2017

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