Wine Review: 2005 Segue Russian River Pinot Noir
15 Winehiker Points*
If you enjoy cultural pursuits and a good book or newspaper, you may have discovered the talents of author, playwright, Hollywood screenwriter, and San Francisco Chronicle wine writer Stephen Yafa. If you’ve been keeping up with the explosive growth of wine blogs this past year, you could probably develop the conclusion that wine writers are dime a dozen. You wouldn’t be wrong, particularly. But Mr. Yafa has been writing about wine far longer than most web logs have been around.
Yet with a lot of extraordinary work behind him, Yafa’s creative spirit had urged him to try something new, to segue his career into the next big thing. And what better pursuit to transition into than something you know about, something you love? Unlike the greater majority of wine scribes who haven’t gone beyond merely thinking about it, Yafa, who lives in California’s Marin County north of the Golden Gate, jumped full tilt boogie into winemaking.
I’ve got to hand it to him. After all, when you’re successful in a career that has spanned some longevity, you could easily choose to rest on your laurels and live off the royalties. You might also die early.
Mr. Yafa chose instead to realize his dream with the building of a new Mill Valley winery, Segue Cellars. To create his first wine, he sought the advice of local winemaker Greg La Follette, whose winemaking techniques have earned rave reviews with the likes of Burgundian-style wines from Flowers, Tandem, and DeLoach wineries, all fine makers of Russian River Pinots.
The Segue Russian River Pinot Noir, vintage 2005, is Steve Yafa’s first vinicultural creation.
A blend sourced from three Russian River Valley vineyards – VanderKamp, Sangiacomo, and Balletto – the 2005 Segue Pinot was punched down by Mr. Yafa himself and aged for 11 months in 50% new French Hermitage oak and 50% neutral French oak. It shows a bright cherry color and a moderate cherry nose upon opening, with slight vanilla undertones. It’s clear, though, by its highly citric qualities, that this unfiltered, unfined wine is young, complex, and in need of decanting to dispel the tartness and pull its disparate components together.
Fast forward: I wait 90 minutes for the duck to breathe off the vapors, tighten the flavors, resolve the acids. But this Pinot remains unresolved.
A peppery strawberry jam taste is present, with medium texture and moderately long finish, but this Pinot is still bitter and acidic, and these attributes distort the wine’s overall flavor profile. I cannot drink it without cheese and bread. After 48 hours, the tannins and acids ultimately soften for appreciable solo drinking.
Does the Segue 2005 need more time to mature? I hope to shout. But Pinot, already a finicky grape to grow, is even tougher to produce wine from. And so I wonder why Steve stacked the odds against himself from the beginning. A desire for challenge? A classic love of Pinot Noir? A twisted masochism normally attributed to winemakers from Calaveras County?
All three, perhaps?
Even the most skilled winemakers, with the latest knowledge, technology, and sourcing at their disposal, cannot ensure alchemy on the first go-round. The best – those winemakers who continue to source their grapes wisely, focus on the fundamentals, consult proper assistance when needed, and most importantly, keep on keepin’ on – will succeed.
And so I encourage Stephen Yafa to continue pursuing his dream.
$42 per bottle, 2-bottle minimum; 50 cases produced.
Disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.
*Rated on the 20-point Davis scale using my Wine Scoring Sheet.
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January 10th, 2007 18:44
Keep Digging. While I am not fond of the citric tastes you describe, so I’ll probably bypass this particular wine, I do love to read your blog. I look forward to what the future may bring to Mr. Yafa’s wines.
January 11th, 2007 13:23
Me too, Larian! After all, passion and good sourcing are half the battle toward producing a good bottle. Much obliged!
November 30th, 2007 10:28
[...] Delight of the evening Talking at length with Stephen Yafa of Segue Winery who had made a 2005 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir that I had panned last year. But oh boy, Steve’s steered my rudder clear ’round with his latest effort, a 2006 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir from DuNah Vineyard. In our conversation, Steve dropped a nugget or two about the DuNah Vineyard, but with holding one rarely-empty wine glass and three conversations going simultaneously most of the evening, my retention level is not at this moment very elevated. Nevertheless I hope to get Stephen to talk about the vineyard, specifically, for this blog. Geez, I’m rambling already! Well, I’m just glad Steve and I connected. [...]
March 19th, 2009 10:54
[...] Wine Review: 2005 Segue Russian River Pinot Noir Author/screenwriter Stephen Yafa’s winemaking debut is fruity and complex but very, very young. (tags: 2005 pinot noir russian river valley wine review winemaker writer blog winery segue cellars winehiker) [...]