Prolific wine reviewer, writer and videographer James Melendez of James The Wine Guy, has been producing thoughtful, meticulously-researched reviews of wines since November 2006. Passionate about wine and business, Melendez — a former national wine marketing manager for a large, off-premise food and wine retailer — has produced thousands upon thousands of brief video reviews. These clips, which typically run less than 5 minutes long, provide a small introduction to the producer, as well as his thoughts on the wine’s color, nose, and palate profiles. Melendez also awards scores based on a 100-point scale.
He recently reviewed Bells Up’s 2018 Titan Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, saying:
To me, I think this wine is just really a sublime, beautiful expression. Pinot noir is just a rare variety where I think you’re just tasting so many characters and so many complex notes, musical notes again, coming through.
But to me it really is very expressive and lyrical and beautiful. So, if you haven’t tasted a lot of Oregon Pinot noir, this is an excellent one to add to your wine tasting table. It is fantastic. I’m going to talk first about the nose and then the palate characterization, and then the point score.
I love the color: light, mid-garnet colorization, vitreous. The nose on this is blue and black fruit notes and split cedar, red and purple flowers, as well as leather notes, evergreen forest and spices.
Next, the palate characterization. Such a beautiful, splendid wine. The acidity is very, very forward and very approachable. And I really get on the front palate notes of heirloom blackberry. Also the minerality on this is very nice. It’s a graphite note, especially on the front palate and then a sequencing to notes of white pepper, red tea, hoisin notes for a bit of a savory character, and finishing with a dried red rose pedal.
This one is 94 points out of a hundred points.
You can watch the full video review, here:
