TN: Coteau jail, Coteau directly to jail

Domaine Coteau 2004 Pinot Noir (Yamhill County) – Earthy beets and dark, brooding, slightly charred plum fruit. I’m tempted to call this “feral,” but that’s not really accurate. It’s a wine that’s more comfortable in lumberjack clothing than a business suit, a wine for a deck in the woods rather than a balcony in Tuscany. It’s good – in fact, it’s quite good – but it’s a very particular sort of good, and not everyone will like it. (8/06)

The Yamhill County subdistrict of the Willamette Valley is horseshoe-shaped. Oenological gerrymandering? Perhaps, but the locals insist that it’s a well though-out cartography, based on consistency of soil and mesoclimate. (Can you tell I’ve just been there?) There isn’t yet a consistent style, but then in the New World such things are unlikely in any case. Alcohol: 13.8%. Closure: cork. Web: http://www.domainecoteau.com/.