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2020 Alit Willamette Pinot Noir
Our Best Selling Pinot Noir, Now Even Better
June 11, 2022
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Two years ago, we offered the previously unknown Alit Willamette Pinot Noir. We were able to get it because COVID shut down many of the elite restaurants for which it had been blended. It was beautifully made for the table, and its quality and moderate price quickly made it one of our best-selling pinot noirs ever.
The 2020 edition has just arrived. The makers have retooled it and made it even better.
Like the last vintage, it’s wonderfully complex and reflects the wine style of consultant-partner the celebrated Burgundy vigneron Louis-Michel Liger-Belair with two differences. A bit of carbonic maceration gives it a fresh fruit affect, complemented by some whole clusters in the fermentation, which gives snap, which the English call grip. The grapes are farmed organically, and its winemaking verges on natural with indigenous yeasts, low sulfur, and minimal intervention.
2020 Alit is one of the most flirtatious Pinots we’ve come across. It teases the nose with evanescent rose-like aromas. Alit’s moderate 13% alcohol means that it flows light and bright. It then shows soft touches of mineral edged with wood. On the palate, it is graceful and articulated, light but not lacking in intensity. It finishes with a light but firm grip. It is a sophisticated pinot, with more clarity than drive
Although its style is like that of more precise Burgundies, its flavors are not because the informing mineral is basalt, not limestone. If you were to imagine Burgundy’s affect as akin to thyme’s high edge, the basalt in Alit makes for lower tones like sage.
With prices of fine Pinot Noir following burgundy into the stratosphere, this wine gives an awful lot of value for a still moderate price. The only bad news is that we have only half of what people ordered of the previous vintage.
2020 Alit Pinot Noir Willamette; Organic Aroma: heady & dense, intense light fresh, invitingly sexy berry with a light wood note; Mouth: intriguing complexity, linear firm, continuing the lightly sexy berry over a solid base; Very Good - Excellent 29.99; special Case, 299.88, 24.99
In stock now
Order by phone at 617.367.8605, or reserve here: order@federalwine.com
- Len Rothenberg
FREE DELIVERY!
downtown on orders more than $75;
in Greater Boston on orders more than $199
