Plenty of Wine; Not Enough Homework

A couple weekends ago, I was giving a humorously informative presentation on pinot noir at the Atlanta Fine Wine Festival. During my talk, attendees tasted wines from Burgundy, France; Oregon; Carneros, Calif.; New Zealand; and, of all places, Spain, not exactly renowned for its pinot noirs. I dropped a Spanish wine in there to prove a point: A lot of Johnny-come-latelies — trying to profit from pinot noir's recent popularity — either make awful wine or wine that lacks the character we find in the other locations.

Turns out, I really need to do better research before I get myself involved in these things.

The 2004 Torres Mas Borràs Pinot Noir from Penedès, Spain, is wonderful. For me, it was in the top two out of the six wines tasted. Only one lady out of the 70 or 80 patient people who listened to me said she didn’t care for it. Many picked it as their favorite.

You see, the picky pinot noir grape generally doesn't take to warm environments, such as those found in northeastern Spain on the Mediterranean coast, where we find Penedès. Completely inappropriate climates, however, have not stopped a lot of winemakers from planting pinot noir in the wake of its popularity following the movie "Sideways."

In September, for example, I stood in the cellar of an unnamed winemaker from the Douro Valley, an extremely hot wine region in northern Portugal. He was experimenting with pinot noir and we had a barrel of his efforts in front of us. We agreed that it was absolutely terrible.

So the Mas Borràs should have been average ... or worse. But the Torres family has been making this wine for at least 20 years (long before Miles and Jack's cinematic wine journey) in a cool corner of upper Penedès. Furthermore, it seems like they've had a fair amount of success with it over the years. Homework was never my strong suit and I can't blame the dog this time.

2004 Torres, Mas Borràs Pinot Noir, Penedès, Spain

• $36

• Two thumbs way up

Deep, alluring aromas and flavors of dark berries. It had a definite earthy, mushroom quality with a hint of smoke and chocolate-covered cherries reminiscent of northern Burgundies.

(Wines are rated on a scale ranging up from thumbs down, one thumb mostly up, one thumb up, two thumbs up, two thumbs way up and Golden Thumb Award. Prices are suggested retail prices as provided by the winery, one of its agents, a local distributor or retailer.)

Originally published Feb. 28, 2008 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution