CORKAGE

A tasting note.  It's been awhile since I've posted a tasting note.  This is nice wine.  I'm feeling it.  Here's the thing about me right now.  My priority criterion for anything I ingest, food or beverage, is texture.  Or let me clarify: whenever I am eating or drinking something in order to evaluate or analyze, my primary marker for quality is texture.  It seems to be telling me everything I need to know.  Or, let me clarify again: if the texture is right, the flavors are then almost always right.  I'm working on an LA barbecue survey right now and texture is giving me my bearings on an otherwise potentially dark road. 

This Jovino Pinot is really nice in the mouth.  Silky texture but with a little bit of surprise lushness.  If this wine is 20 bucks or less, then this texture is superb for the price range, and I just kinda feel like that's the price range we're dealing with here.  It's got the excellent Pinot quality of being light and yet deep, something Pinot pulls off best in the world, no discussion.

Nose and palate reminiscent of some of the early wines I had from Oregon, those Ponzis from the 80's.  Not incredibly complex, but very very delicious.  Really bright fruit (brighter and purer than those  early Ponzi's, actually), brambly, like mulberry and boysenberry, and the slightest bit of smokiness, and just a hint of leaves and earth.  Heck, the more I drink the more I like. 

And, at the end of the bottle I note: the texture is holding, the wine is still compelling, still good.  Oh, and I googled it since I started writing this.  About 20 bucks, at least at Gary V's Wine Library .  And that's where I got the wine from, anyway. 

Re-co-mm-end.