A few of the winos gathered on Thanksgiving grateful for our families, friends, pets and looking forward to some delicious food and libations.  It was a smaller group so we started with a champagne toast to all the weekend winos and our host/chef and then proceeded to plan how we would approach tasting the four different Pinot Noirs.  The host had the Thanksgiving meal well under way so we continued with the bubbly telling childhood stories about Thanksgivings past.  We all agreed that this was one of our favorite Holiday gatherings and when it came to the wine, we also agreed that the 2011 Picchetti Pinot Noir stood out from the rest.  The grapes come from Los Carneros in Napa (the winery states this is a region with ideal growing conditions  for Pinot Noir) and it is aged for 12-months in French Oak.  With berry tones, this was a silky, smooth wine.  Our only regret is that we had just one bottle.

We continued with the tasting much to our surprise the 2009 Craftwork from Monterey was a very close second.             And lucky for us we had more than one bottle!

The other two we tasted – Irony from Russian River Valley and Quimay from Neuquen, Argentina –  just did not compare, extremely jammy and very light.  Same 2011 as the Picchetti, but unfortunately no comparison.  For dessert, we enjoyed the Angelica, which we already knew from previous weekend excursions would be the perfect ending to this wonderful occasion. Looking forward to reconnecting with the larger group to see what they discovered during their Thanksgiving feast.