TN: 2002 St. Innocent Seven Springs PN

My three favorite US producers of Pinot Noir are Dehlinger, Rhys and St. Innocent. I had my St. Innocent epiphany in 2004 when I worked with winemaker Mark Vlossak for one day as we sampled his wines with some of my top wine accounts. It was an amazing “work with” and we sold lots of cases. I got to savor the bottle remnants that night from the 2002’s we were tasting and the extended airing of the wine allowed them to develop and open even further that night. My favorite was the 2002 Seven Springs.

To date my favorite mature domestic PN’s are 1994 Cronin SCM and 2000 St. I Seven springs, which was the last St. I vintage to blend the upper half of Seven Springs and the older vines on the lower slope of the vineyard now known as Anden. It was complex, silky and light on its feet when I finished the last bottle in 2010.

This is my second go around with 2002 Seven Springs. The wine is now maturing nicely and a pleasure to drink. The nose offers mature scent of red fruit, sweet dried spices, cardamom and forest floor with a short lived note of merde to bring some nasal seasoning to the mix.

Medium bodied and silky, the red fruits and forest floor flavors echo on the finish along with buoyant acidity. A wine that a Burgundly lover can get his arms around. Still showing enough structure to go another 5 years I would rate the 2002 ever so slightly over the 2000 due to just a bit more density. Wow this is good!

You’re making me wish I had more of the 02 Seven Springs…

Glenn, did you decant or pop and pour. Thanks, Joe

I poured off half the bottle into a 375 and resealed and put the open bottle into the cooler for 5 hours.

St. I was the gateway PN for me while I lived in Fla in the 90s . Opened up my eyes to domestic PN and we drank a lot of this hanging out on Pensacola Bch back then, also caused us the dive deep into OR reds while @ Emeril’s in NOLA. Thanks for the memories.

Nice. I can’t believe it has been 4 years since I popped a bottle of this. It seemed to just start coming alive around 2008. Time to go digging.

Thanks for the reminder.

Jason

Thanks for the note. I just brought a bottle of this out of storage.

The '02 seven springs is still my favorite St.I, and I’m all out. [wow.gif]

Dig Jason dig.

02 Shea has also been drinking well for the past couple of years.

Love this wine! Such a great value too. I’ve got 1 btl left that I’ll wait another yr or three on. Tasted and 07 White Rose recently and that rocked too.