Waited to open this bottle, and I wish I would have waited longer.  Just to see what else it would say and sing—or more so, wishing I had another 11 bottles.  But this was a gift from Michael Browne himself and I waited for the right occasion, with family, greeted by a rich and prominent palate, convincing and determined with dark meaty fruit qualities and illuminatingly proverbial tannins.  Usually tannin address doesn’t concern me, as I’m looking for fruit composition and profile, but the methods by which these tannins align themselves with the berried tenacity is admirable, worthy of study and ode, the slow sips where you think about what the wine’s telling you—you listen, you let yourself be instructed and shown, shown and delivered to a higher stretch wine wined reflection.  You do nothing but sip.  And slowly.  Study.  Listen, see feel fall and get lost in the fermented translation ebb

This Pinot screams drama and theatricality, not to get attention or connoting that it’s over-extracted or any intricacy overdone, but that there’s so much attention-deserving dimensions to every step and syncopation of the bottle.  It’s obvious Michael Browne has a precise aim with this Pinot project, just like with the circus and how it seeks to not only entertain but help you escape the clasps of mundane modes and muffles.  Here you’re being shown something, something with Pinot that hasn’t before been done or perhaps even attempted.  And what is that exactly?  Not sure—or, I am sure but not with any words presently to characterize it.  It was an experience, it was visual and vivacious, credible and coded in flavorful aggression.  Not sure how to get another bottle, or if I can, but if I ever do I’ll note while I sip—and that’s another note to note; this wine had the writer solely in sip sequence, sans scribble.  Which never happens.

(9/9/15)