Musings on Pinot Noir fruit

Not a good thing to have no varietal character.

Varietal characteristics may be modulated by terroir but should always be present.

In Sicily unfortunately terroir (and often varietal character) get overshadowed by some heavyhanded winemaking. There are of course some very good wines.

Spot on, Mike. And there are plenty of examples of that principle: Huet's Vouvrays, Allemand's Cornases, JP Brun's Beaujolais, Chevillon's NSGs, Prum's Rieslings etc. etc. When you taste the various offerings of one of these producers, you can see just how much difference there is between each vineyard site in the hands of the same winemaker in the same year, yet how at the same time each wine is so true to the grape it's made from. In fact, these days that's the principal criterion I use for my wine purchases.

Mark Lipton

It could be, however, that the Nero d'Avola grape is very different in various parts of Sicily, the only area where it is made SFAIK. It could also be an unusually versatile grape, able to be made into quite different syles of wine. I have had about 6 or 7 different Nero d'Avola wines, from $10 to $45, and all were quite different. in flavor profile

Yes in various areas it assumes different names. Chardonnay, Inzolia and so on are examples, very different.

HUH? What are you talking about? Nero d'Avola is a RED grape.

Primitivo is instantly recognizable to me, as is Negro Amaro and Sangiovese. But Nero d'Avola is an oddity.

:-)

How about "good" or"bad". I'm getting depressed with all this pretentious drivel that is now being heaped on on of my favorite wine types. Happened to merlot. Now it's happeneing with pinots. Can malbec be far behind? I'd better stock up.