The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 is farmed from estate vineyards in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. This is a bottling they produce only under a particular circumstance, and it isn’t a wine they make every year, not that they would want to.
The 2020 grape harvest was marred by fires that have plagued the West Coast. Patricia Green Cellars is a highly respected, elite Pinot Noir Producer; their Pinot sells from between $40 and $150. The smoke from the fires may have compromised some of the grapes.
The juice in the Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 is the decommissioned grapes that would have been used in their flagship estate Pinots. All wineries categorize the grapes; this lot goes into this tier of wines, that lot goes to the second level, the grapes over there are sold off. The grapes used here were initially deemed to be of the highest quality.
Smoke taint is not always easy to detect in wine grapes. Grapes that seem to show no ill effects immediately may have damage that can be exhibited after several years of aging. A winery that has spent decades acquiring an impeccable reputation can not take a chance and produce a vintage that could have defects.
This brings us to the Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020; in the past, this label was used when the winery had a bumper crop of excellent grapes. This time this brand is intended to make the best out of a bad situation.
There is a bar in the Willamette Valley called Lumpy’s where wine workers hang out; it is not fancy; it is a joint. Lumpy’s has an old jukebox, no internet music here, and the jukebox does not take coins or large bills if you are hanging at Lumpy’s and want to hear your tunes bring your dollar bills.
The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 is a wine that I found for $14.99, and a quick check of the web showed that price at many retailers. This Pinot Noir is produced in a drink-it-now style, while the initial Estate wines would have had a more elaborate production.
The difference in production techniques is not good or bad; a drink-it-now wine can be excellent. The possibility of smoke taint makes a wine that is less extracted and consumed immediately eliminate the chance of problems developing.
The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 is a value-priced wine that contains quality grapes seldom seen at this price point. The Pinot Noir will not be the same as the more expensive wines, but the grapes will be. With wine, everything starts with top-quality grapes. The alcohol content is a very high-end Pinot-like 12.9%.
The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 Tasting Notes
The color is a clean, clear garnet with some black highlights. The nose is excellent, cherry, herbs, mushroom, tea, exotic spice, dried autumn leaves, grilled meat. The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 is smooth on the palate with soft and rough-edged flavors, whispery, not bold.
This wine tastes like black cherry, sleek licorice, jammy raspberry, soft herbs, and faint black pepper. The mid-palate adds a chewy sensation (the tannins?), a little, not sweet Dr. Pepper, tart cranberry, and a salty feel.
Originally the grapes would have been in vineyard-specific wine, and here they are blended into one bottling, which gives the flavors a smooth overall feel. This is one of the rare sub-twenty dollar wines where every sip shows a different array of flavor.
The Summary
- The Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020 a rare chance to taste the quality of Patricia Green Cellars Pinot Noir at an affordable price.
- This may be my favorite value-priced Pinot Noir, it is delicious and shows no ill affects from the fires and smoke.
- Pinot Noir is the easy pairing choice of the Thanksgiving meal and dollar for dallar you can not do any better than the Patricia Green Cellars Dollar Bills Only Pinot Noir 2020.
