The Long and Winding Pinot Road, Part XIV

My forty year love affair with Pinot Noir has been detailed in the previous thirteen chapters of the novella, “The Long and Winding Pinot Road,” published in several issues of the PinotFile over the past several months. I now have even greater passion for Pinot Noir than in April, 2001, when I started the PinotFile newsletter to spread my enthusiasm. To read the story in its entirety, click on "The Long and Winding Pinot Road" in the current issue.

With this issue, I am proud to present a new look to the PinotFile and the launch of my new Prince of Pinot website at www.princeofpinot.com. It is remarkable to think about the changes in the world of Pinot Noir over the last seven years since the PinotFile began. The internet has become a powerful medium for sending out to the world the compelling stories behind every good bottle of Pinot Noir. The movie ‘Sideways’ brought Pinot Noir into everyone’s consciousness and the movie’s most famous lines found a place in everyone’s heart. The thin and insipid Pinot Noirs of Oregon and California’s past became a distant memory. Steve Pitcher’s remarks in The Wine News in May, 2002 ring out even more true today: “Of all the accomplishments in American winemaking and viticulture in the last quarter of the 20th century, none has been as impressive as the dramatic evolution of Pinot Noir from near-dismal failure to celebrated success poised at the threshold of greatness.”

And there's more!