Word: noir
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Call it a sideways moment. New Zealand vintners Sam Neill and Adam Peren are surveying a rugged hillside vineyard and discussing why Pinot Noir is the most sensuous and elusive of wines. "If Pinot were a woman, she'd be Audrey Tautou in Amélie," says Neill. "Kristin Scott Thomas," offers Peren. "No, Kristin's a dry Riesling," Neill insists...
...guesses Neill might know, given that he co-starred with Scott Thomas in 1998's The Horse Whisperer (although he did not appear in the Oscar-nominated 2004 Sideways, which established Pinot Noir as the grail of grapes to a global audience). Neill, who has more than 60 movie credits under his belt and who recently appeared on TV as Cardinal Wolsey in Showtime's The Tudors, leads something of a double life. Back in his native New Zealand, this son of three generations of importers of French vintages planted his first five acres (two hectares) of grapes...
Those who recall the debates of Miles and Maya in Sideways (which, winemakers concur, has had a considerable influence on the popularity of Pinot) might remember that Pinot Noir can be unpredictable yet potentially spectacular. Part of the appeal lies in the fact that the vines thrive only on such steep slopes as Burgundy's 2-mile-wide (3 1/2 km), 30-mile-long (50 km) stretch of Côte d'Or (Burgundy and Pinot Noir are synonymous) and in just a few rocky pockets in such places as Australia, Canada, South America and Europe, along with Oregon's Willamette...
...extreme-sports country. The world's top snowboarders compete on mountains buffeted by winds from Antarctica. In fact, Pinot vines don't mind a blanket of snow as long as summer temperatures are warm enough for the slow ripening needed for intense flavors and complexities to develop. "Pinot Noir is not one of those grunty, stand-a-spoon-up-in-it wines. It's fickle and voluptuous and complex," says Neill. "People say there's a lot of wine in the world, but there's not a lot of Pinot Noir, and admirers are looking for regional differences...
Worldwide, Pinot Noir's uniqueness is that it seems to carry in the most pronounced way the taste of the land from which it hails. (The French refer to this as the goût de terroir.) "Pinot from here does seem to reflect the mystery of this place," says Neill, whose merchant great-grandfather arrived during Otago's gold rush and grew wealthy from selling supplies, including alcohol, to miners. "So your family have been peddling hooch around here for 150 years," jokes Peren, who hails from such quintessentially Kiwi stock--as New Zealanders would call it--that his grandfather...