Over the past few years, James Melendez (aka James The Wine Guy) has reviewed many of our wines, following us as we moved from sourcing Pinot Noir to our own estate vineyard finally coming online for production. Formerly a national wine marketing manager at a food and wine retailer, Melendez is a big fan of the little labels, like ours.
In recent months, he’s begun recording short-format video reviews for his YouTube and Instagram channels. In the recordings, Melendez introduces the producer and shares a review of the wine’s color, nose, and palate profiles. He also awards scores based on a 100-point scale.
Last month, he posted a feature on the 2022 Titan Estate Pinot Noir and the 2022 Jupiter Estate Pinot Noir. Although both are made entirely from fruit grown on our property, Dave composes each with a different mix of Pinot Noir clones to produce two wines with distinct characteristics. So it was gratifying to hear Melendez call out the uniqueness of each bottling, saying:
“These are delivering beauty and polish, and I think these are really showing outstanding character and quality and really attention in terms of the estate itself, but also the clonal input and how these taste remarkably different from each other.”
Here are his notes on each bottling:
2022 Titan Estate Pinot Noir
“The [2022 Titan’s] nose is giving an impressive character of violets, as well as fresh red rose petal, cherry, as well as wild black bramble fruit, and a subtle bay leaf savoriness. Forward, vibrant acidity, finely knit tannins, framing black cherry, clove, dried herbs, leading to a bright floral finish with a poised balance. This wine is 94 points out of 100 points.“
2022 Jupiter Estate Pinot Noir
“The [2022 Jupiter’s] nose is expressive of wild red and black bramble fruit layered with sweet spices, violets, and fresh herbs. Vibrant acidity framing the blackberry fruit, baking spices, a lift of red pepper, finely ground spices on a persistent finish. This wine is 93 points out of 100.”
Watch the video, here:
Have you sampled either of these wines? They were just released this past fall, and we’re excited to share them with you. Schedule your tasting appointment—hosted by Winemaker Dave exclusively for one group at a time—by calling 503-537-1328.
The answer, for us, was that life is too short to spend unhappy. So we turned the basement hobby that brought Dave joy — winemaking — into Bells Up Winery.
