Mag lauds 2009 Pinot harvestMag lauds 2009 Pinot harvest

One of America’s most influential wine publications, Wine Spectator, has seen fit to identify the 2009 harvest of California Pinot Noir as potentially the best ever. While the magazine has yet to taste all of the more than 600 wines it plans to assess, senior editor and lead Californian taster James Laube said an “unprecedented” number of the Pinots sampled so far have rated 90 points or above — a rating that the magazine deems as “outstanding.”


“Out of the gate, based on the 2009 California Pinots I’ve tasted so far, it’s clearly one of the state’s most successful vintages to date,” Laube said. “The off-the-chart numbers don’t lie.”


The new century has been kind to Californian Pinots, with superior vintages emerging from 2001 through 20...